A travel agency manager has been jailed for eight months for stealing more than £13,000 from the family-run company where she worked.
Belinda Traves, 51, became a trusted and valued member of staff at Holiday Travel in Bridlington, befriending the owners and rising to the post of manager during her 11 years with the firm.
But she stole from them in a “clever, skilful and persistent” five-year fraud.
Traves denied any wrongdoing but was convicted by a jury of three counts of fraud and three of theft, totalling £13,302.18, following a three-week trial at Hull Crown Court which ended in April.
She was found not guilty of a further charge of fraud by falsifying records, the Hull Daily Mail reported.
When Traves, of Pool-in-Wharfedale, West Yorkshire, was arrested, on April 3, 2012, £4,000 was found in a wardrobe and £400 in an envelope at her then-home in Bridlington, the court heard.
She said she and her husband Anthony used to keep a large float of cash in the house because he was a mechanic and used to buy and sell cars.