A TRUSTED bank clerk stole more than £28,000 by siphoning money from accounts she set up in the names of relatives she had fallen out with.

Mother-of-one Maria Ann Madison, 40, narrowly escaped a prison sentence yesterday, after Durham Crown Court was told she had intended to pay back the money, but ran deeper into debt after the break-up of her marriage.

The court heard that Maddison worked at HSBC's Sunderland city centre branch for 22 years until her offending came to light, last May.

Roger Elsey, prosecuting, said it emerged after her brother-in-law, who she no longer spoke to, received a statement saying he was £5,000 overdrawn at the HSBC bank.

Unaware of the account, he reported it and the branch manager recognised Maddison's handwriting on a loan application.

She told investigators she maintained the scam by diverting statements sent to her relatives, until one slipped by on a day she was off work.

Mr Elsey said the bank had frozen Maddison's pension fund, from which the outstanding money will be retrieved.

Jamie Adams, mitigating, said it was a "misguided" way of overcoming mounting debts after her marriage split.

Maddison, of Lister Close, Seaham, County Durham, admitted five charges of theft, and two of forgery of a document and false accounting. She was put on probation for a year