A PARISH clerk who plundered tens of thousands from a village's coffers is to challenge an attempt to claw back some of her ill-gotten gains.

Anita Whittle, who showed no 'real remorse' after being caught with her hand in the public purse, was spared jail because she cares for her grandson.

Now the 49-year-old is challenging an application under the Proceeds of Crime Act to try and compensate Bratton Parish Council and the village's council tax payers.

Among the thousands of pounds she siphoned away was money meant to go into her pension fund, run by the county council, which she instead paid into her own account.

A judge at Swindon Crown Court was told she contests whether that money, which she would ultimately have been entitled to, should be counted as criminal property.

Robert Bryan, prosecuting, said that a hearing would be needed where a judge would decide the final figures she must repay.

Judge Tim Mousley QC adjourned the case for a date to be fixed, to give both sides time to prepare their cases.

Whittle, who was also clerk for Erlestoke, Great Cheverell and Coulston, helped herself to almost £30,000 raised from villagers in Bratton over more than ten years.

Having held down the part time job, for which she got an £11k salary, since 2001 she started to abuse her position in late 2005.

Between May 2013 and December 2015 she paid herself £11,372.66 she wasn't entitled to from the council bank account.

After taking the cash, on average two or three times a month, she also falsified the accounts so it wouldn't show up as missing.

During the year to April 2015 she paid herself at least £600 in cheques from the parish.

The final deception involved her diverting money meant to go into a pension fund run by the county council into her own account.

The payments should have been made since December 2005 but in the ten-and-a-half years before she was caught none of the roughly £15,000 due to go in the pot arrived.

Whittle, of Southway, Bratton, pleaded guilty to two counts of theft, fraud and obtaining property by deception.

The court heard that she went on spending sprees with the money and was now responsible for looking after her grandchild.

Whittle was only found out when a new councillor, Jeff Ligo, the former chief executive of West Wiltshire District Council, tried to look at the books.

Imposing a two-year sentence suspended for two years in June a judge told her "I don't detect any real remorse from you."