A FINANCE worker who blew more than £380,000 to feed a major gambling and cocaine addiction has been jailed for three years.

Counsel for Glyn Rothwell, 37, said he was such a prolific better that bookmakers would offer him hospitality for Cheltenham races and provide funds for him to gamble still further.

But Minshull Street Crown Court heard Rothwell was funding his pleasures by siphoning money from his employers.

Justin Hayhoe, prosecuting, said Rothwell stole just over £162,000 from Harrington Brookes Ltd, between March 2015 and April 2018.

And when that firm was taken over by Think Money, and his employment was transferred across, he took another £219,000 plus.

Rothwell, of Stoneleigh Avenue, Sale, who had only one previous minor conviction, pleaded guilty to two offences of fraud.

Mr Hayhoe said the defendant originally worked as a client accounts supervisors for Harrington Brookes and it was his job to return credit payments to the correct recipients.

But instead, the court heard, Rothwell befriended the people who authorised such payments and diverted the money to his own account.

The supervisor handed in his notice in 2018 but was required to work three months' notice, the court was told.

Mr Hayhoe said that during this period the defendant stole £92,000 of the £380,000 he took overall.

The court heard that in order to amass such as large amount of money, Rothwell had undertaken hundreds of illegal transactions.

Mr Hayhoe said Think Money, once fraud had been suspected, had to pay an external forensic accountant more than £38,000 to unpick his wrongdoing.

Sarah Magill, defending, said her client was a "well-liked and well thought of" man who had found himself in a large amount of debt due to his gambling and drugs problems.

Rothwell had been left now with nothing but a criminal conviction "and a distressed partner" she added.

Jailing him, Judge Edwards said: "I accept that you found yourself in a vortex of debts, gambling and class A drugs, which started when you were at a particularly low ebb in your life."

But the judge told him an immediate custodial sentence was inevitable given the amount of money involved and the breach of trust which had taken place.