A SCHOOL administrator who stole £4,800 has been spared jail after a Judge was told she took the money to fund her boyfriend’s drugs habit.

Katie Brown was a finance officer at the South Dartmoor College in Ashburton but pocketed cash which should have been banked or lodged in a safe.

She tried to cast a shadow of suspicion on to work colleagues after envelopes full of cash were found in her desk drawer, Exeter Crown Court was told.

The money had been paid by parents for uniforms, by pupils at the school shop, and users of sports facilities and should have been properly accounted for.

She stole a total of £4,832.86 but £2,126 was recovered from her desk and she has been ordered to repay the outstanding £2,700 as compensation.

Brown, aged 28, of Mount Pleasant, Chudleigh, admitted two counts of theft and one of false accounting and was jailed for nine months, suspended for two years and ordered to do 200 hours unpaid community work by Judge Graham Cottle at Exeter Crown Court.

He told her: ’You told the police that colleagues were possibly to blame for the loss suffered. That was a wicked thing to do when you knew nobody else but you was to blame.

’What you did was a gross breach of trust placed in you by your employers to look after funds paid to the college.

’What you did over two-and-a-half years was squirrel away envelopes containing cash into your personal desk drawer and you drew upon that cash as and when you felt you needed to do so.

’There is no doubt that at the very least you helped yourself to £2,700 belonging to the community college which should have been banked.’

Mr David Sapiecha, prosecuting, said:“The school received income from various sources including an on-site sports centre which was open to the paying public, a shop, uniforms and the canteen.

’They placed cash and cheques into envelopes and on the outside of the envelopes was marked the amount. They were taken to the finance office and handed over to one of a number of possible recipients. This defendant would be one and should have placed them in a safe.

’Over an extended period of time, she retained a number of the envelopes in the drawers of her desk enabling her to dip into them as she wished.

’Once the envelopes were in her desk she was never going to give them back. They were her stash.’

Mr Jeffrey Segan, mitigating, said Brown came from a good family where the principles of right and wrong had been installed in her from a young age and was too ashamed of herself to admit what she had done at first.

He said Brown had been in a relationship with a man who was taking amphetamines and added: ’She realises what she should have done was to ask for help but she buried her head in the sand.’