A WOMAN who stole £76,000 from a bus company savings club has been jailed for 33 months.

Debra Hill, 56, cheated the company out of the money over a four-year period before the theft came to light just before Christmas 2016.

The court heard she used the money to try to buy her adult chidrens’ affection. 

Hill, who was a bus inspector and administrator of the Christmas savings club for more than 150 workers based at Arriva’s depot in St Helens, brazenly pointed the finger of blame at others - causing one innocent colleague to even consider resigning about 41 years service.

A judge told Hill that the only motivation for her dishonesty, which spanned four years and devastated dozens of bus drivers, appeared to be “greed".

Several bus drivers, angry at being left out of pocket, attended Liverpool Crown Court for the hearing and there were loud cheers outside the courtroom when they learnt that she had been sent to jail.

Mandy Patel, prosecuting, told the court that Hill had been “in a position of trust as a bus station inspector and encouraged new members to join and existing members to save more.”

Unknown to them over a four-year period she was transferring funds from the club’s bank account into her own account.

Judge Gary Woodhall said that when the £76,000 loss came to light just a month before Christmas 2016 it caused “anger, stress, anxiety and general panic as to how those people would manage their Christmas affairs”.

A total of 120 emergency credit union loans had to be arranged to help out those most affected, though that left them with the extra burden of paying it back plus interest.

Sentencing twice-divorced Hill, who eventually admitted her criminality but still tried to blame others, Judge Gary Woodhall said that her colleagues had saved “their hard earned cash” into the savings club and she managed the bank account along with another worker, David Pimblett.

At one stage there appeared to be a shortfall and Mr Pimblett injected £16,000 from his own pension fund but by November 2016 there were further concerns about a shortfall and an intensive review of the club’s bank account revealed £76,050 was missing.

“Those bank statements also revealed that you had been transferring money from that savings club into principally your own personal bank account and there were many withdrawals and transfers,” said Judge Woodhall.

“When interviewed you denied any wrongdoing and suggested that the bank transfers were due to drivers wanting to leave the scheme early and you repaying funds to those people and generally people making transfers for their own use.”

In a later interview she again denied being to blame saying, “I have never stolen anything in my life.”

The judge pointed out that when interviewed again she admitted it “was all her fault” and that she had allowed her unsuspecting son and daughter to use some of the money. “But you still appeared to challenge some of the figures.”

The court heard that grey-haired Hill, of Atherton Street, Prescot, has mental health problems following stress at work and suicidal thoughts.

She sat shaking in the dock at times and apparently on the verge of tears at others but showed no emotion at all when sentence was announced and was led to the cells.

Miss Patel had told the court that Mr Pimblett had been repaid £12,000 but had been left £6,000 out of pocket from his pension and his own savings into the club.

He had worked with the company for 41 years but because of the tension resulting from the missing funds he had even considered leaving.

She said that the money left in the club’s bank account was divided between the members but they only received 64 per cent of what they had saved and had each lost between £92 to £1,107.

Hill, who pleaded guilty to fraud, told police that she had had a breakdown because of pressures at work and said she “wanted to apologise and was sorry for messing everybody about.”

Stuart Mills, defending, said that Hill, who worked for Arriva for 15 years, has no previous convictions and “has found it extremely difficult to come to terms with what she has done.”

He told the court, “She tells me the money was going to her children, she was trying to buy their affection. When they were in times of trouble she would give them money at their request.”

Some of the money went to repay the balance on a car purchase but there was no evidence of high living or addictions such as gambling. Her relationship has broken up as a result of the offence and she lives alone in a one-bedroom flat and plans to return to her home county of Somerset.

She had moved to Merseyside with her second husband after getting her job though that marriage had also broken down. As well as stress caused by her job she has heart problems and was distressed at the prospect of jail.

"She said in tears: 'it is what I deserve but I don’t think I can cope with it’,” he said.