A FORMER health care support worker who admitted stealing £21,833.45 from her employers has not been ordered to pay it back.

Instead, Golcar woman Yvonne Atkinson was given a four-month suspended sentence after stealing from Calderdale Primary Care Trust (PCT).

The 29-year-old received salary payments even though she decided not to return to work after having a child.

But instead of informing the PCT they had mistakenly paid her each month, she informed them she had changed her bank details and continued receiving wages.

Prosecutor Louise Azmi told Judge Peter Benson at Bradford Crown Court yesterday that Atkinson had been employed by Calderdale PCT in October, 2006, and received a £14,037 salary for her full-time post.

She worked in a team delivering 24- hour complex care to patients at home.

“The defendant ceased working for the trust on May 13, 2007. She left to have a child and did not return to work,” said Mrs Azmi.

“In April, 2008, the Trust changed the system that they use to make salary payments. When the staff information was put onto the new system she began to receive salary payments that she was not entitled to.”

The PCT mistakenly made 22 monthly payments to the mother.