Yorkshire bank manager stole £100,000 from elderly customers

A BANK manager who stole more than £100,000 from elderly customers has been jailed for 21 months.

Owen Danter, 33, a former Conservative Party official in East Yorkshire, pleaded guilty at Hull Crown Court to nine counts of theft from five elderly victims, officials confirmed.

He took the cash, which totalled £107,000, from the accounts of five elderly customers and the East Yorkshire bank’s cash machine between 2007 and 2011.

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Danter was branch manager of the Alliance & Leicester in Market Place, Driffield, before continuing in the post when it was taken over by Santander.

The thefts were exposed following his attempted suicide at a forest in North Yorkshire. The net closed in on him when the bank received a complaint and called in auditors.

Danter was reported missing on July last year by his family on the day the auditors were about to carry out their investigation. He attempted suicide and left a note for his family and the bank confessing to taking funds for his own use.

Jailing him, Judge Jeremy Baker, QC, said Danter had committed a “deliberate deception”.

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The court was told Danter, of Copandale Road, Beverley, was an alcoholic who used the funds to maintain his lifestyle. He hoped to pay back the stolen money before his clients noticed but things got “completely out of his control”, the court heard.

Speaking after the case, Detective Sergeant (DS) John Meagher said Danter targeted elderly customers deliberately “because he thought they wouldn’t notice the money going missing”.

The bank has fully reimbursed the victims.