Jail for pub manager who left note saying sorry

A pub manager in the Black Country who stole more than £26,000 to fund her gambling habit has been jailed for 16 months.

Sarah-Jayne Ellis, aged 29, left a note in the safe of The Myvod Pub in Park Lane, Wednesbury, saying sorry before she later handed herself into police.

Yesterday she sobbed in the dock as her sentence was passed. Ellis, of Arps Road, Codsall, "panicked" when she realised how much money she had taken and left a letter to a colleague in the safe before taking the train to Brighton, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard yesterday.

She returned within hours, however, and handed herself in to police with £2,000 she was carrying in her bag.

Ellis admitted theft, having pocketed £26,786.

Mr David Lees, prosecuting, said: "The letter said that she had become increasingly depressed over the last three months or so.

"She had resorted to heavy gambling in the last week-and-a-half and she had borrowed money from the safe which she had lost through gambling.

"She thought she had taken £13,500 and expressed some remorse."

Mr Robert Cowley, defending, said the crime was unsophisticated, and Ellis always knew she would be caught because there are automatic logs of what has been sold and where the pub money was kept.

He added that she was under continuous strain in her work due to lack of staff.

He said: "She was simply not coping with her role as a manager. There were problems with staffing and it resulted in her becoming claustrophobic, working week in week out and she simply wasn't coping."