A BARNSLEY man has been jailed after he stole almost £284,000 from his employer to fund his online gambling addiction.
Thomas Speight, 23, a purchase ledger clerk at Hoyland based double-glazed windows manufacturer Euramax Solutions, stole the money over an 18-month period and when found out tried to throttle himself with a towel round his throat in the toilets at work.
The father-of-one wept as he was jailed for three years and four months at Sheffield Crown Court.
His £18,000-a-year job was to receive invoices from suppliers and then authorise payments for them through the bank transfer system.
But a colleague noticed discrepancies in the accounts with payments going out without invoices being put into the system.
The court heard Speight’s wife is standing by him. They have a son with another baby due in March.
Read more in this weeks Barnsley Chronicle
