Jail for Metro ticket clerk who stole £85,000

Nov 19 2008 by Neil Atkinson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A TICKET office clerk who stole £85,000 while working for Metro has been jailed for 18 months.

Brighouse father-of-two Simon Barratt stole the money over six years by inputting bogus refund transactions into the computer system at the Metro office in Huddersfield.

Bradford Crown Court heard that although 45-year-old Barratt had spent some of the stolen money on gambling, the majority had been used to pay off debts run up by his estranged wife and to look after his two children.

Prosecutor Duncan Ritchie said Barratt’s offending came to light in October last year when he came into work on his day off and was caught trying to get about £400 using false refund transactions.

At a disciplinary hearing a year ago Barratt, of Harley Place, admitted that he had been stealing from Metro for some time and he eventually pleaded guilty to a series of theft charges involving a total of £85,000 which he took between 2001 and 2007.