by Keith Hunt

A manager who systematically stole more than £136,000 in coins from railway station car park machines has been jailed for four years.

Alan Hall’s partner Tracy Scott - more than 30 years his junior - enjoyed the fruits of his thieving.

But she escaped an immediate prison sentence because of their two children aged nine and four.

Hall was working in the London area and the South East for Meteor, which was contracted by South Eastern Railway, when he took the money over almost three years.

The 65-year-old, of Barleycorn, Leybourne, East Malling, admitted theft.

Scott, 34, admitted acquiring criminal property and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment suspended for two years with unpaid work of 175 hours.

Anne Phillips, prosecuting, said bosses at the company became suspicious about variances in amounts being collected by Hall and set up CCTV cameras at Sevenoaks station.

He was seen on several occasions putting his hands into cash counting machines and taking money out. He would sort out cash and place it in a money bag.

When arrested in December 2009, his car was searched and £263 was found in the boot, an amount similar to the shortfall that day.

Mrs Phillips said a financial investigator looked at the couple’s accounts and found that following Hall’s dismissal the total unexplained amounts in them was almost £100,000.

Hall, who served in the RAF and once worked for the Zambia High Commission as a chauffeur and bodyguard, at first claimed the money came from boot fairs.

Mrs Phillips said Scott’s involvement was assessed at £50,000.

Judge Jeremy Carey asked where the money stolen had gone as the amounts stolen amounted to about £44,000 a year, the equivalent of a gross income of £70,000.

The prosecutor said some money had gone into their children’s accounts, there was a car worth about £11,000 and Hall had gambled some. They had not taken expensive holidays.

Judge Carey said there was a substantial degree of trust on Hall’s part. He was trusted to count the money and record the amounts.

"Over a period of just short of three years you stole from your employers by literally dipping into the boxes – a very substantial sum indeed," he said.