A MAN'S "clumsy" bid to fleece his former employers of £81,000 when he was made redundant quickly came to light, a court heard.

Michael Andrew Stokoe altered his £9,059 redundancy cheque from Bookham Technology, in a bid to increase the pay-off tenfold.

Durham Crown Court heard he changed the nine to "ninty" and added a zero to make the figure paid into his account £90,059.

Ten days after he received the cheque at Bookham's UK base, in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, he paid it into a bank in Chester-le-Street, County Durham.

The bank automatically checked with the company and the cheque was stopped and, following an investigation, the company reported Stokoe to police.

Stokoe denied fraud and said he knew the amount he was due was only £9,059 and claimed someone unknown within the company must have doctored the cheque before it was given to him.

Having denied a charge of attempting to obtain a money transfer by deception, 37-year-old Stokoe, now of Lenin Terrace, South Stanley, County Durham, was convicted by a unanimous jury.

Following the verdict, his barrister, Nick Cartmell, told the court: "This was an aberrational act, an act of gross stupidity that was never going to succeed."

Mr Cartmell said Stokoe was suffering stress at the time he was made redundant.

He was fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £750 costs.

Recorder Graham Hyland said: "This was a fairly clumsy attempt, which was inevitably and ultimately going to be discovered."

He said that should Stokoe, now a self-employed builder, fail to pay the fine within 28 days, he will go to prison for 45 days.