A wealthy woman who was accused of stealing up to £500,000 from a popular garden centre has walked free from court.
Julie Brown, 51, worked as the bookkeeper at Garrion Bridges Garden and Antique Centre near the Clyde Valley in Lanarkshire for seven years. After she left, bosses claimed to have discovered alleged financial irregularities and called in police.
Brown, of Lanark, denied embezzlement between March 2016 and July 2019 and was cleared after a trial at Hamilton sheriff court, where she accused Lynette Douglas, the owner of the garden centre, of carrying out a huge tax fraud.
Brown told the court that she and her husband, Sandy, had been sharing £70,000 of income from business interests, had £1.5 million in assets and would not
