£13k cash con clerk walks free
An accounts clerk who stole more than £13,000 from her Wolverhampton employer has walked free from court, despite it being her second offence.
Christine Moulton sobbed in the dock as Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how she stole the cash from the city's family-run D.S Matthews Ltd, where she had worked for less than a year.
The 25-year-old mother, from Braemer Close, in Sedgley, has been handed a suspended prison sentence for the theft – despite the court being told she had been prosecuted for taking cash from her previous employers in 2002.
Mark Phillips, prosecuting, said that she paid out wages at the firm and altered amounts to put more money in her own pocket.
But Simon Phillips, defending, said that Moulton, who admitted theft, had now paid back the £13,183 in full.
"It was just about keeping her head above water. She now realises this must never happen again," he added.
Recorder Geoffrey Cliff said: "The way you are living at the moment is beyond your means. In modern day living people stretch themselves and they fall deeper and deeper into difficulties."
He said that, after reading reports on Moulton, she should be allowed to walk free from court, but warned her she would go to prison if it happened again.
She was given a 28-week jail sentence suspended for two years, has been made the subject of a two-year supervision order and told she must carry out 80 hours of work in the community.
Speaking after the case, company director David Matthews, said he was "shocked" that Moulton had avoided a jail term. "I trusted her to do her job and all the time she was stealing money from me," he said.
