ATM repairer stole £6,500
An engineer who serviced and repaired cashpoint machines in Northamptonshire has been jailed for stealing almost £6,500 over a 16-month period.
Paul Streater, aged 48, of Daventry, stole varying sums of money from the ATMs across the Midlands for which he was responsible on 19 separate occasions
Northampton Crown Court heard he was employed by G4S to repair and service cash machines in the Luton, Oxford, Kettering and Daventry areas.
Grant Keyes, prosecuting, said that in December, a G4S risk manager was examining the use of a number of machines and noticed money had been going missing from them.
He said: "She detected from the pattern of thefts that the defendant had attended all the ATMs to repair the machines.
"In February, she collated all the losses from 19 occasions to be 6,430."
The court heard that when a senior manager confronted Streater on April 23 about the unexplained losses, he admitted it at once and was arrested.
Having pleaded guilty to theft, Judge Thomas Corrie jailed him for four months, telling him it was essential for people to be able to trust ATM engineers.
The judge said: "It was not very sophisticated and was bound to be noticed, as it was by a manager.
"The one thing you have not been frank about is why you took this money. I quite understand you were under great pressure because of your wife's illness. But whatever the true explanation for this dishonesty, it was a serious breach of trust. The sum was not large but it was significant.
"There's no doubt imprisonment, in principle, is inevitable. The only question is whether it can be suspended. I have concluded, with regret, that it cannot, in all the circumstances."
Streater, of Hawkins Close, Southbrook, Daventry was committed to the crown court for sentencing after he pleaded guilty to thefts between January last year and April.
Elizabeth Gooderham, mitigating, said Streater had been a trusted employee, having worked for the same company for the past 18 years.
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