Ex-golfer fiddled books to hide gambling habit

Stephen Weir was in the "worst place" to deal with his problem but did not steal any money from the branch of Coral where he worked in Coseley, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

The 40-year-old father of three used credits normally bought by punters to play the four machines without paying but did not cash in receipts when he won, revealed prosecutor Mark Phillips. Weir is estimated to have 'lost' up to tens of thousands of pounds worth of credits from the bookmaker while playing free but allegedly put between £1,000 and £5,000 of his own money into their coffers in a bid to cover up the fact, the court heard.

Mr Phillips explained: "There was a theoretical loss in what the bookmakers would have made from lost stake money if he had been genuinely playing the mach-ines but he did not actually take any money from them."

Weir held at least 18 free gambling sessions on the machines in the shop between December 2 last year and March 27 and also "amended" returns detailing their use, the court was told.

Then he filled in a Coral bank book with false information four times between March 19 and 29 claiming to have paid in thousands of pounds more than he had actually deposited.

Kate Thomas, defending, said that training for the job had involved playing fruit machines and his gambling addiction then developed "out of the blue," said

The ex golfer from Warstones Drive, Warstones, who is now attending meetings of Gamblers Anonymous and was of previous good character, pleaded guilty to false accounting and was given a 12-month community order under supervision.