IT IS the remarkable family story of the 'merry widow' who escaped jail and the 'divorced daughter' who didn't.
More than 10 years ago, Denise McNeill grabbed national headlines and the nickname 'merry widow' after she racked up debts of £2.5m following the death of her husband.
McNeill, who amassed a trail of unpaid bills, including chauffeur-driven cars
, stays in luxury hotels and expensive family parties, faced charges for fraud, but prosecutors ran out of time to bring the case to court.
Now Scotland on Sunday can reveal the remarkable story of how McNeill's daughter, Katie, former wife of a haggis tycoon, had much worse luck and is currently serving three years for defrauding her employers of £500,000.
Denise McNeill was originally a housekeeper for Ronald MacNeill, who built up Storage and Distribution Centres (Scotland) into a multi-million-pound concern, renting out industrial sites in the early 1990s.
The couple married and, along with Katie, moved into Balgavies House, a 17th-century mansion near Forfar in Angus. Denise was made a director of the company and was known to spend hundreds of pounds a week on lottery tickets and £40,000 a year on the gardens.
After Ronald died in 1996, at the age of 62, the lavish spending continued, even though the company began to run into serious financial difficulties and was eventually wound up.
Denise McNeill faced repossession of the house, numerous legal actions for debt and, ultimately, arrest by Customs over alleged VAT fraud. Today she is believed to be living quietly in the north of England.
But it has emerged that her daughter Katie was living a similarly colourful life. In 1998, describing herself, at the age of 26, as Third Secretary at the Foreign Office, Katie McNeill married James MacSween, who runs the famous MacSween haggis company, in a society wedding near Edinburgh although they later divorced.
McNeill, 36, is now behind bars following a fraud trial at Newcastle Crown Court. She admitted charges of fraud, false accounting and deception dating back to 2002. The court heard how over five years she cheated three companies, including one in Essex and two in the north-east of England.
After getting jobs as a personal assistant to managers, she was able to fraudulently use company credit cards, cash cheques and even set up personal direct debits from business accounts.
She spent the money on leasing luxury cars, staying in top hotels in London, buying expensive clothes – she had a Harrods account – hiring a chauffeur for £1,000 a month and paying former England footballer Peter Beardsley to attend a family event.
Although the agreed sum in court was £210,000, police estimated the real cost of her fraudulent activity at £500,000.
Her first victim was a vocational training organisation in Essex. She was employed as a PA to the boss but was sacked when it came to light she had defrauded the firm out of £12,000. She appeared in court in 2005 and was released on bail.
But despite being dismissed and criminal investigations being launched, she was able to find work with another company and start the scams again.
While on bail, she then became PA to Timothy Sanderson, head of Eshott Hall Estates in Northumberland. Three months later, she was sacked again after it was found she had conned her bosses out of £31,324.
Her next target was a Newcastle-based international security firm, Team Savant, which employed her in December 2006. McNeill took £166,000 from the company.
Clare Rutherford, who ran Regalo Concierge Services in Newcastle, was hired by McNeill on many occasions to arrange cars, hotels and entertainment.
She left Rutherford's company £6,000 out of pocket and forced her to close it down.
Rutherford said: "She was very plausible, wanted the best of everything. It was supposed to be for clients and now we know how she paid for it. That she managed to do it to three companies is amazing but she was a real professional."
Although her mother was never convicted of any crime, Denise McNeill's life was never dull. Her taste for the high life resulted in no fewer than a dozen actions to recover money. They included the Palace Hotel in Gstaad, the Ritz in London and Sunlaws House Hotel near Kelso, which had hosted a three-day engagement party for her daughter.
By March, 1999, the then 50-year-old faced bankruptcy after sequestration proceedings were brought against her at Arbroath Sheriff Court. Eventually, Balgavies House was repossessed and sold.
McNeill was later arrested after an operation by Customs & Excise and charged over an alleged VAT fraud. But prosecutors failed to bring her case to court in time and it was dropped in January, 2006.
Denise McNeill could not be contacted for comment.
The full article contains 819 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
