A LOANS company manager who fell into debt was jailed for 12 months yesterday for stealing more than £40,000 from his bosses.

Twice-married Michael Bright, 48, took out bogus loans for himself from MMF UK Ltd, where he was the Darlington manager for 11 years and had worked for 17 years.

Bright told police he fell into arrears with his mortgage and then wasted money on scratch cards and horseracing, trying to pay his debts.

Shaun Dryden, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court that Bright finally turned to stealing from his company, and also took his branch's £2,800 cash float.

The company's operations manager, Gordon Sinclair, discovered Bright's thefts. When Bright was told he was being suspended, and was asked for the float, he admitted he spent it and had been opening bogus accounts in customers' names.

He was arrested the next day and told police he had been in debt since before his second marriage, and there was a risk of him losing his house.

James Wythyman, defending, said Bright offered to repay £19,000 of the stolen money from a pension payout and was determined to pay the rest.

Medical reports showed Bright was suffering depression for years, and his prison officer brother-in-law said he would suffer greatly in jail.

Judge Peter Armstrong told Bright: "You are no doubt a decent family man and you have not sought to prevaricate in any way.

"There has to be a custodial sentence, I am afraid I cannot avoid it because there has to be a deterrent element for those who steal from their employers and at this level of money."

Bright, of Hawthorn Road, Spennymoor, pleaded guilty to seven charges of false accounting, and two of theft between February 2000 and last December, with 73 taken into consideration.