AN insurance clerk stole nearly £1,700 by taking customers' payments over the counter and keeping the cash.

Kerry West, 27, was cornered when customers received red letter insurance bills when they had already paid.

But after she was questioned by police, West got a job with another firm where she also stole.

West, of Elm Street, Stanley, County Durham, who appeared at Newcastle Crown Court yesterday, was jailed for four months.

The £200-a-week insurance clerk worked for Northern Counties Guarantee Corporation, Gateshead, led a blameless career for ten years before she began to fleece the firm.

In October 1997, she began to alter customer accounts, take cash without recording payments and created false entries in the company's books.

Stephen Duffield, prosecuting, said she helped herself to small amounts of cash for about two and a half years, adding up to £1,389 by April 1999.

The court heard how she was finally cornered when one customer received a red letter for an insurance payment she had already made and the track led straight back to West.

Further investigations revealed a list of missing payments and West was arrested and released on police bail.

She then began a job at the Portwood insurance firm in Consett, County Durham, where she took about £300 before bosses were alerted.

Married West pleaded guilty to a total of 14 offences, of theft, false accounting and dishonesty.