A NORTH Yorkshire bank manager who stole more than £250,000 from customers’ accounts has been locked up for three years.

Lesley Austin could not explain what the money – secretly taken over six years – had been spent on, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Recorder James Adkins seemed unable to believe that the vast amount of cash could not be accounted for.

He told Austin, 48, of Lockyer Close, Newton Aycliffe, County Durham: “You must have spent it on yourself.”

Bespectacled Austin was the manager of the branch of the NatWest in Richmond, North Yorkshire, the court was told.

She took money from the accounts of five customers – some of who were dead, and whose savings accounts were pending probate. Paul Abrahams, prosecuting, said she took advantage of situations to steal as much as she could.

The judge told Austin: “You had the ability to move that money and you were in a high degree of trust.”

Simon Perkins, mitigating, said Austin had been suffering from depression and “cracked” when she stared stealing in 2008.