Security worker stole cash from payphones

Paul Walker (48), of Regent Street, Rotherham, raided BT payphones 55 times while working for security firm G4S, which was contracted to empty their cashboxes.

Walker stole from cashboxes on an almost weekly basis between December 2016, and December 2017 — stealing up to £722 at a time.

He admitted theft and was sentenced to 12 months in jail suspended for two years at Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday.

Judge Michael Slater said he had been persuaded to suspend the sentence after reading a letter from Walker’s ex-wife which described him as “honest and hard-working”.

Walker stole a total of £22,424 and BT had to spend £8,250 dispatching operators to investigate the thefts and £190 on materials.

Prosecutor Mr Neil Coxon said: “There had been suspicions leading up to the time of the commission of the first offence that there were irregularities in the north-eastern area.

“That had drawn the attention of the BT office and the matter was kept under investigation.

“Over the course of the year, it transpired, one operative was making more calls than usual to report problems with cashboxes he was emptying.

“A covert camera was fitted to one of the boxes this defendant was scheduled to visit and captured what he was doing

“He was brought in by his employer to account for the discrepancies.”

Walker, who has no previous convictions, initially denied any wrongdoing but admitted stealing from cashboxes once he had been played the covert footage.

“Clearly this will have an impact — albeit this is a multi-million pound company — but this is not an insignificant amount of money,” said Mr Coxon.

Ms Rebecca Tanner, mitigating, said Walker had worked for G4S for “little more than minimum wage” for almost a decade and there had been no evidence of “extravagant spending”.

After losing his job, he split from his wife and lost his home but had some agency work due to start in January, said Ms Tanner

“There’s genuine remorse on his behalf and he knows he brought this matter upon himself,” she added.

Judge Slater said Walker had cared for his wife for seven years while she was hospitalised but he had an alcohol problem which became worse when his wife left hospital.

He ordered Walker to complete a six-month alcohol treatment requirement and 20 days of rehabilitation.