A TRUSTED employee who stole £154,000 from her unsuspecting bosses has been jailed for three years and nine months.

Rita Swan’s employers, Atherton-based Ena Mill Retail, also did not know she had two convictions for stealing from previous firms.

While 64-year-old Swan lined her own pockets, two company directors went without salaries for the first six months of the business starting up.

The court heard Swan worked as office manager, was highly regarded and was “treated like one of the family.”

For four years until the autumn of 2015 Swan, who was paid £25,000 a year, stole money that should have been banked and frittered it away.

Judge Brian Cummings QC, told Swan that the case involved a “truly terrible and distressing state of affairs. This was persistent dishonesty.”

“This is the third time you have been before a criminal court for thieving from your employers committed in flagrant breach of trust. You are just a thief. It is an utter disgrace.”

Swan, of Hollytree Way, Blackburn, pleaded guilty to three offences of theft, false accounting and money laundering. Kevin Slack, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court that Jonathan Addis and Simon Yates set up the business, which generated a large amount of cash each day.

Cashing up was not Swan’s job but she regularly involved herself in the process despite being told not to and stole money she should have banked.

Steven Swift, defending, said that Swan, who was jailed for 12 months for stealing from another employer in 1993, put down her behaviour “down to temptation.”

”She knew this day would eventually come,” he said.