A POST office worker stole £2,000 from her employer less than two months after starting the job, a court heard yesterday.

Hollie Michelle Dixon, 18, of Princes Street, Bishop Auckland, admitted taking the money from the town post office on April 1.

Magistrates in Bishop Auckland were told that manager Shirley Marie Kelly ordered a full staff check after discovering the money was missing on April 2.

Dixon returned £1,000, which she claimed to have found stored in the wrong area of the shop. Police visiting her home and found £500 in her handbag. The remaining money had been spent on clothes and furniture.

Robert Willoughby, for Dixon, said she started an apprenticeship with the Post Office in February and the opportunist theft was out of character.

He said that it came after a very difficult year for her, in which she had lost three family members, and a close friend died in a car accident.

Dixon was sentenced to 80 hours of community punishment, and ordered to pay £503 compensation and costs of £34.