POLICE who investigated a fraudster's £400,000 theft from her employer has described the incident as an "appalling breach of trust".

Yesterday, gambling addict Kathleen Weir was sentenced after admitting stealing £400,000 from her bosses to fund a £1.2million gambling habit.

The 40-year-old, of Edwina Close, Southampton, admitted embezzling the cash from family-run Elliots builders' merchants over seven years and blowing it on horse racing and football bets.

She was given a five year sentence at Southampton Crown Court yesterday.

Now the man who investigated Weir's actions has spoken about her crimes.

Police investigator Stephen Webber, said: "Kathleen Weir was employed by them for seven years but she exploited the company’s trust in her by systematically draining company funds to feed her gambling habit.

“The amounts involved were staggering and this was happening over a very long period of time. Both these factors demonstrate the severity of Weir’s gambling addiction.

"The fact that she has nothing to show for it at the end of the day tells its own story.

“But it wasn’t her money she was gambling with.

"Her actions were to the detriment of the company which placed its trust in her and to everyone who worked with her.

"She has abused that trust appallingly and the sentence today reflects that.” 

Southampton Crown Court heard how the management accountant – who also used the surname Griffin – used nine different bank accounts in her name to stash stolen cash.

She also buried transactions worth hundreds of thousands of pounds so that bosses wouldn’t see them.

But Weir hid her employment history – as well as the court case – from current bosses, who lent her cash she said she needed to pay off debts.

The court heard how Weir’s deceit started just months after she began working for Elliotts builders’ merchants in 2009.

Her responsibilities included keeping accurate accounts and making payments to HMRC.

But it wasn’t until 2016 that bosses at the Northam-based family business noticed irregularities.

They launched an internal investigation into the missing funds.

But Weir refused to comment on the investigation, instead blaming others for the errors.

It took police two years to prove that Weir had hidden transactions worth £209,414.38, and cashed cheques worth £196,635 - paying them into her own accounts.

The court heard that Weir tried to take her take her life after being arrested, and she was sacked on November 1.

Weir changed her plea to guilty on December 4.

Mitigating, Sarah Jones said Weir would benefit from treatment and said her mother is vulnerable.

But she also said it was hard to explain how Weir got herself into the situation.

The court heard how Weir made 8,000 bets over a two year period through Ladbrokes, Skybet, William Hill and bet365.com.

But investigators said she put winnings back into her betting in order to fund her £1.2million gambling addiction - which she spent on race horses and football.

Weir wept throughout proceedings until Judge Parker QC handed her her sentence.

He said: “Within five months of the start of your employment you began to steal from the company, pilfering and ransacking the company.

“You spent something like one and a quarter million pounds on online betting.”

He added that Weir’s techniques were “not the most sophisticated” - but that it was “hard to ignore the fact” that she placed blame on others.

Now bosses at Elliotts have said they are still shocked after they were slammed with a £10,000 HMRC fine on top of the the £400,000 lost due to Weir’s activities.

Speaking to the Echo, managing director Tom Elliott said: “I feel sorry for her family."

He added: "We have lost a huge amount of money and we won’t ever get it back.”

Weir’s current boss Paul Heys - MD of Hamble based company Key Yachting Ltd said he was “surprised and shocked” by the news.

“We know that Kath had been suffering from stress and we have given her time off to deal with it.

“When she joined us she said she had not had a recent career as she had been taking care of her ill father.

“We cannot imagine how difficult it must be to be trapped by such an addiction.

“We hope that Kath has the mental strength to deal with her sentence.”

Weir pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and was sentenced to five years imprisonment by Judge Parker QC.

Gambling Anonymous UK were contacted for a comment.