A CHURCH deacon who stole more than £42,000 from a family- run haberdashery store was caught after the owner found a video tape of his sexual encounter with a younger former colleague.

Douglas McAllister, 48, is awaiting sentence at Glasgow Sheriff Court after he admitted using his company credit card and accounts to steal the money from Glasgow- based Mandors, where he was finance director.

Karen Deutsch, who owns the business with her husband Michael and was recovering from an aneurysm at the time, found explicit social media messages between McAllister, of Eaglesham, East Renfrewshire, and his mistress within the company’s emails.

Mrs Deutsch also found further evidence of his fling in a box in their office marked “To Do”.

A check of a memory card in a video camera belonging to McAllister there, revealed footage of the church organist having sex with his mistress.

She added: “I’m the administrator for the Mandors email accounts and carry out regular checks on them. I found in Douglas’s account a Whatsapp conversation that was pornographic and between him and one of our ex-members of staff.

“This was a married man with three children. I found a second one and it was filthy, disgusting.

“But just because he was having an affair didn’t mean there was anything else wrong.”

Mrs Deutsch told her husband, adding: “He said: ‘In my experience, a married man would use a company credit card to pay for things that he doesn’t want his wife to find out about.

“‘Karen, go back and look through his credit card receipts.’”

An audit uncovered unexplained receipts for an overnight stay in a Dakota Hotel and dinner for “an enormous amount” at the Loch Green House Hotel in Troon, Ayrshire, paid for by the company.

McAllister, who had been hired to run the firm’s finances after Mrs Deutsch took ill in 2007, had also bought a £1,200 lawnmower.

There was also a receipt for an oven delivered to McAllister’s home, the accountant had taxed his wife’s car, bought a car, and there were details of payments for mobile phones.

Mrs Deutsch added: said that his embezzlement had been an even bigger betrayal for her and her husband because they had come to rely on McAllister.She said: “All the time he was there I kept saying to him, ‘It’s great having you here, Douglas, we can’t manage without you,’ and all the time he was stealing from us.”

Mrs Deutsch’s ill-health continued, with a bout of bronchitis in July 2013, and then her mother died. The businesswoman was also diagnosed with heart failure.

This meant the firm continued to rely on McAllister, but Mandors posted a surprising £50,000 loss in 2014, the first time it had done so since trading begin in 1977.

Mrs Deutsch also noticed that company expenses were much higher than usual and there was an increased use of the credit card.

Mrs Deutsch said: “We had been trading successfully since we set up the business in 1977 and it was the first time we had made such a loss, so aAlarm bells started ringing.”

“I wasn’t well enough but our losses were so great that I came back in to work to ask questions again.”

“Douglas was now in charge of all the cheque books and bank accounts and had a company credit card.”

Mrs Deutsch confronted McAllister and he was suspended on full pay. She said: “He said, ‘Please forgive me, give me another chance. I’ll pay back the money, just let me keep my job.’”

He will be sentenced next month.

“We suspended him on full pay and he gave me back the credit card and shop keys. He left and then we started looking into what else he had been up to.”

The fallout has put Mr and Mrs Deutsch through the ordeal of police interviews and left them paying back short changed suppliers, who Mrs Deutsch said have been “very understanding”.

Mrs Deutsch said the case had caused her stress and and strain and added: “It is unbelievable the things he had done. It’s constant – I always have it on my mind, it’s very upsetting.”

McAllister’s solicitor, Ross Yuill, said he had advised his client not to comment.