Brian Donnelly 38

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A convicted sex offender who stole more than £1,500 from the bar where he worked—including £600 raised for charity—has been jailed.

Brian Donnelly, 38, failed to disclose his prior conviction for downloading child sex abuse images when hired as bar manager at The 9 Anchors pub in Seaton Carew, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Albany Kidd said Donnelly began taking cash home after shifts but spent it, adding: “He was the sole person to have a key to the safe and that was a high degree of trust.”

Donnelly had received an eight-month suspended prison sentence in June last year. He pleaded guilty to stealing £1,575 on September 1.

Mitigating, Nick Ayres said his client struggled with alcohol, was addressing it via probation, and pleaded guilty early. “This started out because the defendant was taking cash home because there was no safe and I think he regretted that,” he added. “He wasn’t paid by his employers, he would say, so he stupidly spent this cash as he had rent arrears mounting up.”

Judge Advocate Tom Mitchell activated the suspended sentence, stating: “I do understand that alcoholism is a terrible disease but it doesn’t often reduce people to the position that you are in – there is an element of choice that goes with it.

“You committed an imprisonable offence shortly into an order which was suspended. It would have been explained to you the consequences of breaching a suspended sentence order – it always is.

“I can’t make a liar out of judges who tell you that – if someone breaches a suspended sentence then I have to imprison them because the law says I must do so.”

Donnelly, of Borrowdale Street, Hartlepool, was jailed for 14 months.