A WORKER at the Barclaycard call centre in Stockton, who stole more than £15,000 from the accounts of nearly 30 customers, was jailed yesterday.

Teesside Crown Court heard that Philip Dehaney, 22, had three convictions for theft, the last one only a month before he began work at the call centre.

Robert Terry, prosecuting, said after starting work at Barclaycard he transferred money to his own bank account which he used for luxuries and to pay off his debts of more than £20,000.

The thefts were discovered when a nurse called the centre to record her change of address, and Dehaney withdrew £4,915 from her account. All the transactions in which Dehaney had been involved were checked and it emerged that he had stolen from other people, the court was told.

Dehaney, who was taken on by the bank last year, was suspended and on November 5, he voluntarily went to Stockton police station.

He admitted all the offences that were put to him and said he had used the stolen money for meals, clothes and paying off credit card bills.

Deborah Sherwin, for Dehaney, said he got the job through an agency and had not been asked whether he had any criminal convictions.

She said: "He was a young man who was effectively somewhat feckless with money who found himself in a mess that simply grew and grew.

"What he was earning was not sufficient to pay off what he owed on cards."

She said that more than £9,000 of the stolen money had been frozen in Dehaney's NatWest account which would be returned to Barclaycard, and he was now bankrupt with earnings going to pay off his debts.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough Judge Peter Fox told him: "Telephone banking, of which this is one arm, is being relied upon more and more by the public these days and the public is being exhorted through advertisements to use telephone banking more and more."

He said "One can see the convenience of that so long as one can trust the person on the other end of the phone.

"It is a matter of concern that you were taken on in this position of trust with those convictions, and it is no excuse for Barclaycard to say that they were hiring you from an agency."

Dehaney, of Myrtle Road, Eaglescliffe, was jailed for eight months after he pleaded guilty to theft between May and August last year with 29 other offences taken into consideration.