Former accountant and father-of-two, Thomas Watson, systematically defrauded the company he worked for as a financial controller and, in addition, pilfered a collection raised by its staff to aid victims of the Tsunami earthquake, Guildford Crown Court heard.

Watson was jailed for 18 months yesterday after pleading guilty to 14 counts of theft and asking the court to take 84 similar offences into consideration, the Daily Mail reports.

The court was told Watson had been employed for four years as financial controller of Noma Lites Ltd, in Weybridge, Surrey, where he had access to all the company’s financial records and was an authorised signatory of its cheques.

Thomas Cleeve, prosecuting, said that, between February 8, 2005, and November 14, 2006, the defendant abused his position by repeatedly stealing money from the company until he was discovered and sacked before being arrested in January last year. Watson paid thousands of pounds to a male escort James Mannion, 34, of Garrick Street, Soho, London, the court heard.

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