A COUNCIL worker who stole more than £13,500 from the authority’s accounts to help her boyfriend’s struggling business was yesterday spared a prison sentence.

Abigail Clement was told by a judge that she was being saved from jail because she quickly confessed and prevented innocent colleagues falling under suspicion.

Clement had worked for Darlington Borough Council for nine years before her dishonesty was discovered by bosses in the public protection division last September.

Investigators discovered that the 31-year-old processed 125 fake transactions in a year – making refunds minutes before cashing up, so she could pocket the money quicker.

Clement, of The Meadows, Middleton St George, near Darlington, pleaded guilty to theft when she appeared before South Durham magistrates last month.

Justices transferred the case to Teesside Crown Court because they did not consider their powers of imposing a maximum sixmonth prison sentence were sufficient.

Yesterday, Recorder William Lowe passed a 14-week sentence, suspended for 12 months, and ordered Clement to carry out 200 hours of unpaid community work.

Recorder Lowe was told that the entire £13,670 has been paid back to the council by Clement’s parents, with whom she now lives with her six-year-old daughter.

The court heard that the thenpartner of Clement had a recruitment company that was suffering in the recession, but he had no idea where the money had come from.

“It was born out of desperation,”

said Ian Bradshaw, mitigating.

“I ask for credit for her hitherto good character and her plea.

She didn’t haver when she was challenged.

“Although it went on for a year and showed some persistence, it was not in any way a sophisticated fraud. It would not have passed the notice of the auditors, and seems not to have done.

“This was not financing an extravagant lifestyle – any champagne lifestyle – it was paying primarily the business debts of her ex-partner. She succumbed to temptation.”

At the magistrates’ court hearing, it was said that Clement processed fake refunds for fees paid by taxi drivers in a fraud described as “an offence against the community”.