Bar manager jailed over takings theft

A bar manager has been jailed for 15 months for stealing nearly £20,000 from his pub to prop up a failing food section.

Timothy Knight took £19,200 from Baroque in Low Row, Sunderland, over nine months because he feared he would be sacked if the owners, pub operator Sir John Fitzgerald, saw that the food side of the business was a failure.

Newcastle Crown Court heard last week that Knight began borrowing money from the safe to subsidise the food section, which was run separately.

He used to leave 'IOU' notices in the safe but after a while Knight, who had been with the company 14 years, began manipulating the pub's records as the debt spiralled.

The scale of the crime was only detected after £500 was found missing from the records and a full investigation was carried out.

Knight, from Bede Street, Roker, had earlier admitted charges of theft and false accounting.

Jailing Knight, Recorder Gargan told the 39-year-old: 'You pleaded guilty to a series of extremely serious offences which involved a significant breach of trust.'