Woman weeps as court hears of 'lost' £41,000

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A post office worker who covered up a £41,000 shortfall has been spared jail.

Thaxted sub-post office manager Duranda Clarke wept as she was sentenced to six months in jail, suspended for a year, and ordered to carry out 150 hours’ unpaid work.

Clarke, of Limefields, Saffron Walden, admitted fraud by using her position to record greater amounts of cash than there actually was.

But Nicholas Dunham, Royal Mail prosecutor, said: “We don’t know where the money has gone. We cannot call evidence to the required standard to show the defendant had taken it.”

Clarke, 54, committed the offence at Town Street post-office, part of a newsagents shop, between August 4 and November 12, 2009.

Auditors found a loss of £41,168 and Clarke said she inflated “cash on hand” in the computer system, but claimed the loss was created through a “mistake” and expected a transaction correction would be made to remedy the situation.

Mitchell Cohen, for Clarke, said she never had the money or had any intention of taking it.

Sentencing Clarke, Recorder Francis Laird said: “I can see from your reaction that you are ashamed of what you did.”