A bank worker who helped himself to �35,000 of his employers' money has been jailed.
Dale Jeffrey abused his position as a commercial lending officer at HSBC by fraudulently taking out an overdraft in his then partner's name.
The 27-year-old resorted to crime because he was in debt – and then gambled some of the money in an effort to remedy the problem.
Jeffrey, of Copse Close, Eyres Monsell, Leicester, was jailed for 20 months, after admitting fraudulently obtaining �34,988 between January and May last year.
Janet Hall, prosecuting, told the city's crown court the defendant joined the bank in 2005.
On January 5 last year, at the bank's business lending centre in Leicester, he opened a business account in the name of his then partner, with whom he has two children.
They were planning to buy and sell baby clothes to make extra money.
She trusted him, said Ms Hall.
On January 8 he secretly applied for an �8,000 overdraft on the account, which the bank's computer refused, but he abused his position to authorise it.
He was later off work with stress and anxiety, but still went into the office to increase the overdraft several times and used telephone banking to move cash to his own account.
His partner moved out of their former Loughborough home in June and, when she asked him for the password to her account, he confessed. She reported him to the bank and the police.
Jeffrey voluntarily went to the police station.
Jonathan Longman, mitigating, said: "He didn't spend it on a lavish lifestyle. There were no expensive cars or houses. It was to keep his and his family's head above water. He realised he couldn't pay it back."
He said he was in the process of making himself bankrupt and had offered to start repaying the HSBC.
Sentencing, Recorder Peter Cooke said he accepted Jeffrey was sorry, but described it as a gross breach of trust.
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