A BANK manager who stole more than £41,000 to feed his gambling debts at Oswestry’s Nationwide branch was spared jail by a crown court judge.

Robert Wilson, 34, of Ffordd Pentre in Mold, was sentenced to two years – suspended for two years – for theft by an employee and false accounting between September 30, 2019 and April 24, 2023.

He pleaded guilty to the two counts, totalling a theft of £41,110.85, at Telford Magistrates Court in July this year after making a full admission to police and his bosses at Nationwide.

Prosecutor Simon Hanns told Judge John Butterworth that Wilson, who joined as a customer service representative in 2015 before working up to manager, was shopped by an employee he had deliberately trained incorrectly to hide his theft.

The member of staff, Francesca Lee, noticed Wilson’s attendance was erratic and also counted up a shortfall of £7,000.

This, said Mr Hanns, led to a manager from another branch carrying out and investigation and the shortfall was confirmed leading to external auditor Drew Blake’s appointment.

The court heard that Wilson then told Mr Blake that he would find the full shortfall of around £41,000 which came from withdrawals of £100-£400 for his gambling.

He would then remove more money to try to win his losses back, all taking place over the period of 42 months.

The court heard that Wilson deliberately mis-trained his employee in order to hide his attempts to falsify the shortages in his cashier tills and another system to the totals of £34,020.85 and £7,090.

He then admitted all offences in interview with police and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

Mr Hanns also proposed that alongside the theft and fraud by Wilson, he had also shown a high level breach of trust and also exploited others.

Kevin Jones, defending Wilson, said his client’s deliberate mis-training of Miss Lee had actually removed a layer of human involvement, stating the banking needed two checks, rather than one.

He called on Judge Butterworth to give Wilson a suspended sentence to his client because he accepted that it was not a lighter punishment as he would carry its shadow for his life.

Mr Jones argued that the conviction would ‘be a shadow’ on Wilson’s employment future and also had a huge impact on family, and added that he and his partner was expecting a child in two months.

Judge Butterworth told the defendant that what Miss Lee found was ‘the tip of the iceberg’ but added it was notable that he made a full admittance to Mr Blake.

He said Wilson was in a ‘vicious cycle of gambling’ and that he was ‘startled’ to read that a bank manager ‘struggled to managed money’.

He sentenced Wilson to three years, reduced to two, for both offences, suspended for two plus 20 rehabilitation activity days and 80 hours unpaid work.