A former police officer turned business manager stole more than £75,000 from his employers, a court has heard.

Simon Hindley, 38, worked as a parts manager at MKW Heating Controls Ltd in Hindley Green, where he used the company credit card to make thousands of pounds worth of personal purchases.

He also sold company stock, keeping the funds for himself losing the company yet more money at a time it was already under pressure due to the pandemic, Bolton Crown Court heard.

John Kennerley, prosecuting, said: “It seemed to the directors that the defendant was very capable and that he was trusted without question by the other directors.”

Mr Kennerley told the court how Hindley, of Chestnut Grove, Hindley, had been given the job in 2015 after leaving the police force.

He had access to the company credit card for work-related expenses but used it to buy expensive tools for his own personal use and marking the spending on the company’s records as ‘miscellaneous.’

Hindley also sold company stock to customers, paying the invoices into his own bank account and sold part to engineers and MKH Heating Control’s sister company.

Between August 2017 and March 2021 he stole more than £75,000 from the firm and had also been planning to sell stocks on to customers in Bangladesh.

If this had succeeded the funds, he had cost the company would have been a total of more than £80,000.

Hindley was finally confronted by the company directors in March 2021 and he admitted some of his fraudulent acts and repaid some of the money.

But he was forced to make a full admission of his crimes after the police became involved and he agreed to a voluntary interview in October last year.

The former police officer’s actions had deeply distressed his fellow MKW Heating employees, which morale at "rock bottom" for weeks after his crimes were exposed, with some of them fearing that the company would not be able to survive.

Niamh McGinty, defending, said: “There’s little to be said to minimise this offending.”

She added: “This was a series of greedy and selfish offences against his employer and indeed his long term friend.”

But Ms McGinty argued that Hindley’s actions were "out of character" and that he had shown he was capable of living a normal, law-abiding life.

She reminded the court that he had already sold his family home to pay some of the money back, that he had lost his job and claimed that he deeply regretted deceiving his employers in this way.

Ms McGinty said: “It’s been the wakeup call he needed.”

Judge Tom Gilbart accepted that Hindley was of previous "good character" and that he had paid back some of the money but reminded the court of the devastating impact his actions had on his employers.

Addressing Hindley, he said: “When the fraud was uncovered there were fears that the company would collapse, and members of staff speak of their feelings of betrayal at what you did.”

He added: “This was not a single isolated incident but conduct over a number of years.”

Judge Gilbart sentenced Hindley to two years in prison for one count of fraud.

Greater Manchester Police was contacted for a custody picture of Hindley.