TWO men bound their victim to a chair and stole nearly £13,000 from a Westhill hotel, a court heard today.
The duty manager of the Westhill hotel, Neil Riddell and his accomplice attacked a worker at the Holiday Inn and stole the cash in the robbery.
Today, Riddell and Aaron Elder appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court where they admitted pretending a robbery happened at the Westhill hotel.
The court heard 40-year-old Riddell had lost his job following the hotel robbery.
His defence agent Michael Horsman said Riddell had managed to gain employment at a hotel in Elgin and had been trying to get his life back in order.
Riddell and 34-year-old Elder admitted forming a plan to steal money from the hotel in Westhill and pretending that the theft was a robbery.
They assaulted hotel worker Ian Kiloh, acted in an intimidating manner, bound him to a chair with tape and stole £12,908.55 in cash.
The pair also took a handheld radio, various banking documents and receipts from the Holiday Inn, Aberdeen West Hotel, on Westhill Drive on April 1 this year.
Elder, who was listed in court papers as a prisoner in Aberdeen, carried out the hotel robbery while he was on bail.
Mr Horsman, acting for Riddell, said Mr Kiloh was not injured and that £11,770 was recovered from the Westhill hotel robbery.
He also said Riddell had offered to make up the repayments of the balance.
The solicitor asked Sheriff Kenneth Stewart to continue bail as Riddell had only two relatively minor previous convictions and the most recent dated back to 1990.
Sentence was deferred on the pair for background reports.
Riddell, whose address was given in court papers as 46 Kineddar Street, Lossiemouth, was released on bail and Elder, who was represented in court by defence agent Bob Anderson, was remanded in custody.
This afternoon the Mark Jones, the Westhill hotel’s said Mr Kiloh was undergoing counselling for trauma.
He added: “We have increased our security levels and we have spent a substantial amount of money improving what we have.”