A MEMBER of staff at a Barry bank stole more than £17,000 from a customer's account to cover debts he racked up through online gambling.

Newport Crown Court heard how Miles Harvey, 27, of Miskin Street, Barry had began drinking heavily and gambling after his father became seriously ill last year.

Harvey, who had been working in the banking industry for eight years, five of which had been spent as a financial advisor at Halifax on Holton Road, when a customer noticed unauthorised transactions being made from her account through July and August 2014.

In total customer Jean Ellis noticed four transactions, including two on the same day, transferring £17,400 out of her account.

The subsequent investigation found the money had been transferred into a Natwest account belonging to Harvey, who then confessed to his superiors that he had stolen the money.

Harvey pleaded guilty to a charge of theft at Cardiff Magistrates in November before being sentenced yesterday (Wednesday, January 6) at Newport Crown Court. He has also since paid the money back to the victim.

Judge Phillip Richards spared Harvey from jail, citing his previous unblemished character and the "degree of shame" he has brought on himself and his family as some of the factors that led him to implementing a suspended sentence, curfew and community service orders.

Judge Richards said: "This was appalling behaviour and a total breach of the trust which had been placed in you by your employers and the public. There can be no excuse for your behaviour.

"In your case, your father is suffering from a serious illness. Unfortunately that sort of event does confront a large number of employees from time to time but they don't react to it in the way in which you did.

"You decided to take someone else's hard earned money for your own purposes and I recognise that there are consequences. The degree of shame visited on you, on members of your family is such that I can take that into account in deciding whether it is absolutely necessary to add to that shame an immediate prison sentence."

Harvey was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment, suspended for two years, to be placed under curfew for six months and to carry out 200 hours unpaid work.

He was also ordered to pay £250 costs and a £100 victim surcharge.