AN administration assistant who embezzled more than £5,000 from her unsuspecting employers has narrowly escaped going to jail.

Marie Ann Swift, who admitted three thefts, was sentenced to four months imprisonment suspended for 12 months.

33-year-old Swift, of Walby Close, Woodchurch, had pleaded guilty to three thefts from her then employers, family owned Liverpool building contractors WH Snow Ltd.

The judge, Recorder Richard Pratt, QC, said it was "an outrageous breach of trust" but said he accepted she had committed the offences while in debt to pay off household bills.

He ordered her to carry out 100 hours' unpaid work and placed her under supervision for 12 months with attendance on a probation course.

Simon Leong, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court that she had been employed by the firm for a year by the St Anne Street-based firm when it was noticed in September last year that a £2,880 invoice had been paid twice, the second payment going into an unknown bank account.

When asked about this, Swift said she would look into it. But suspicions were aroused when she had apparently made no progress and three days later she went off sick and never returned.

Further checks revealed duplicate payments had been made on two other occasions and police later found two had gone into the account of Swift's partner and the other into a friend's.

The total involved was £5,387.

Frank Dillon, defending, said it had not been sophisticated and Swift herself admitted, "I always knew I would be caught."

She is a mother of two teenage children and took the money when facing spiralling debt. "She is genuinely remorseful and ashamed. The offences were borne of need not greed," said Mr Dillon.