A SHOP assistant who stole £500 from the village shop and Post Office where she once worked for her step-father has been given an 18-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months.

Lyndsey Ruth Ackland, 39, of Lister Grove, Lower Westwood, was also ordered to pay her step-father and the shop owner, Raymond Parsons, £500 compensation and £300 court costs.

Keith Ballinger, prosecuting, said Mr Parsons cashed up his takings on August 17 last year and discovered that £500 was missing. Later, he viewed CCTV footage and saw his step-daughter entering the store.

She was seen to open the door to the safe room and leave it again “a short while later, with something in her hand.”

Ackland had been employed as a shop assistant at the Westwood Post Office & Costcutter Stores in Tynings Way until earlier in 2017, when Mr Parsons terminated her employment.

The court was told that the safe area was out of bounds and Mr Parsons had not given Ackland permission to enter it after her employment ended.

In a police interview, Ackland said she had entered the shop shortly after coming out of hospital, and that she had been walking around shopping when she noticed the door to the safe room was open.

“She said she had previously managed the store, and went in to make sure the safe was secure”, Mr Ballinger said.

Ackland said that while in the safe room she had dropped a card and that is what she was seen carrying on CCTV.

She told police she could not remember any more details because of the medication she was on.

At an earlier hearing, Ackland had pleaded not guilty to a charge of burglary and elected to be tried by magistrates instead of a crown court jury.

Ackland said her relationship with her step-father was “poor” and he was “trying to blame her for cash going missing”.

In a statement, Mr Parsons said: “Since reporting the theft, life at home has been very difficult. This put a strain on family life. My wife, her mother, has been reluctant to admit she was responsible.”

The court heard Mr Parsons’ wife had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and the stress had affected her health.

Mr Ballinger added: “She [Ackland] visits the family home, but he stays in another room and doesn’t talk to her.

“He says the whole incident has caused him to distrust people and he is always looking for signs people are stealing from the business.”

A probation worker told the court Ackland “still maintains that she is unable to explain her behaviour that day”.

“She was unable to explain what happened to the money,” he said. “She said she can’t find it.”

He said Ackland, a single mother of two, had put her house on the market to cover her ongoing mortgage arrears, and was planning to purchase a narrowboat.

Magistrate Simon Browning said: “This is a very serious matter you have been found guilty of. You were an ex-employee, there was a breach of trust involved and you were a member of family.”