THE sentencing of a woman who "ruthlessly exploited" the trust of her colleagues as she stole £76,000 from a bus company savings club has been welcomed.

Debra Hill, 56, was a bus inspector and administrator of the Christmas savings club for more than 150 workers based at Arriva’s depot in St Helens.

She transferred £76,050 of funds from the club’s bank account into her own account.

She pleaded guilty and was jailed for two years and nine months at Liverpool Crown Court.

Hill, of Atherton Street, Prescot, had set up the savings club with a colleague, David Pimblett.

Fellow bus drivers at the depot could save money over 12 months for Christmas and any interest on the money would go to charity.

In December 2015 Mr Pimblett and some colleagues went to the Santander branch where savings were kept to make a withdrawal but discovered that the funds were short.

They thought this may have been because they were taking the funds out two weeks early.

Mr Pimblett had recently transferred his pension into a cash ISA and offered to use some of this to cover the shortfall. He handed over £16,000 in total to Hill.

But when a group of colleagues went to the bank the following December the fund was short again. Staff at the bank told them that there’d been a number of bank transfers out of the account.

Santander provided bank statements that showed Hill had made a number of transfers into her personal account over the last 12 months. The total she’d stolen was £76,050.

Mr Pimblett was eventually repaid £11,500 by the defendant, and he was given a further £500 but was still short of £4,500 of his pension money and £1,500 of his Christmas savings.

Hill initially denied that she’d stolen the money and claimed she transferred the money to her own account so that she could pay out to drivers who were leaving the company.

But she eventually pleaded guilty to fraud and blamed her behaviour on stress at work.

Crown advocate Mandy Nepal, of Mersey Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Ms Hill was responsible for a dreadful abuse of trust against the people that she was working alongside.

“She was entrusted with their hard earned money and she stole it for her own use. David Pimblett used his own pension money to cover the shortfall and has never been fully reimbursed for this.

“She denied what she’d done on a number of occasions and even tried to transfer the blame onto Mr Pimblett, who was suspended from work for a period as a result. He now feels unwelcome and uncomfortable in a place where he has worked for 41 years.

“She left her colleagues short of money at one of the most costly times of year. Many had to take out emergency loans to manage.

“Ms Hill was of previous good character and it’s not clear exactly why she chose to act in the way she did but that good character is now lost.”

Also welcoming the jail sentence, Detective Constable Matthew Rimmer, added: “A large number of employees who had placed their trust in Hill to look after their money, enabling them to save throughout the year for the Christmas period.

“Hill ruthlessly exploited that trust by taking large sums and paying them into her own bank account. It’s hard to believe that someone would stoop so low as to steal their colleagues’ hard-earned wages.”