A Budleigh Salterton supermarket manager who stole £26,000 from the shop safe must pay back £6,000 or face jail

A Budleigh Salterton supermarket manager who stole £26,000 from the shop safe has been ordered to repay £6,000 of the money under the Proceeds of Crime Act, or face jail.

Sally Hall took the money from the Spar shop in Budleigh Salterton and spent it on repaying debts and funding a gambling habit.

The 57-year-old was initially thought to have no means of repaying the money but a police financial investigation showed she had a share in her ex partner’s home in France.

Hall, of East View Cottage, Honiton, appeared at Exeter Crown Court for a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Recorder Mr Andrew Maitland adjourned the case for three months to allow her ex partner time to raise the £6,000 he needs to buy out her share of the property in Brittany.

The case will then come back to court where Hall will be ordered to pass over the money or face three months in jail.

An earlier hearing assessed her benefit from crime as £26,000 but ruled her only available assets were her stake in the house in France which was worth £6,000.

Hall was jailed for 16 months, suspended for two years at Exeter Crown Court in 2015 after a Judge told her she had committed a serious breach of trust.

The court heard Hall ran the Spar shop as manager for two years after being promoted from assistant manager; one of her jobs was to reconcile and bank the takings.

She said she took two lots of £13,000 in two different weeks, having previously stolen and repaid £800.

Mr Rupert Taylor, defending, said he hoped the Proceeds of Crime Act case could be resolved by agreement when it comes back to court in July.