Gambling bank manager stole from old customers

James Finnigan, 42, spent hours on the computer at home playing games which ate up the £616,000 he stole over five years, the Old Bailey heard.

Father-of-two Finnigan, of Twickenham, Surrey, pleaded guilty to 13 counts of fraud involving 43 transactions.

He had been the financial planing manager at Barclays Bank in Twickenham when he became addicted to gambling.

When he emptied his credit cards of £50,000, he began taking money from 12 accounts of people who were in their 80s or had died.

The frauds began with £9,000 and escalated to £252,000 as his gambling “snowballed”.

One of the accounts was a trust set up for a 40-year-old Down’s Syndrome sufferer by her elderly mother.

Martin Sharpe, defending, said: “He is a broken man, crippled by shame.”

Finnigan had offered to pay back £123,000 from his pension funds.