A WOMAN broke down and cried after her “greedy” business partner was jailed for stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from their company – leaving her in financial ruin.

David Patrick Hedges was told by Judge Peter Bowers at Teesside Crown Court that his two-year sentence would have been longer had guidelines allowed it.

The 50-year-old former business bank manager admitted ten counts of obtaining money transfers by deception, ten counts of using a false instrument – cheques – with intent, and one charge of theft.

He was jailed for two years.

Ann Fawcett, who owned 70 per cent of Nursing Staff Solutions (NSS), based in Redcar, to Hedges’ 30 per cent, wept as he was sentenced.

She said it was the end of a long nightmare during which she and her family had lost their home.

The charges related to father- of-three Hedges, of Church Wynd, Sherburn, County Durham, taking £100,000 from the company over two years.

Mrs Fawcett set up the company in 1996, with Hedges joining in 2000 after her bank manager recommended him.

He was responsible for the financial running of the company, while Mrs Fawcett continued to work part-time as a nurse.

The court heard Mrs Fawcett was planning to move with her family to Canada, so had agreed to sell her share of the £400,000 business to Hedges. He promised to hand over an instalment of £150,000, which never materialised, then offered to pay £4,000 a week.

However, after five months, Mrs Fawcett realised the weekly payments were coming out of company funds.

She discovered payments of £200,000 Hedges had made from NSS accounts to the Inland Revenue had been credited to other companies he was involved in.

Eventually, she was forced to sell the business for £30,000.

She said: “I should hate him, but I do not. I actually feel sorry for him. I think he is a victim of greed.”

The court heard that Hedges had also filed for bankruptcy.

Christopher Knox, in mitigation, said Hedges should be given a suspended sentence, because his “fall from grace”

had already been punishment enough. But Judge Bowers said: “You were milking her as a cash cow for your own means.”

Hedges has agreed to pay Mrs Fawcett £35,000 from the lump sum of his pension, and will also give her the £2,500 proceeds from his car.