A SCHOOL secretary stashed almost £40,000 in cash, cheques and school vouchers in her wardrobe because she said she was too busy to pay it into the bank.

Carolyn Frampton, 47, formerly of St Nicholas Infants’ School, in Wallingford, yesterday pleaded guilty at Oxford Crown Court to four counts of theft totalling £39,500 and was ordered to pay £15,000 compensation, meaning she will have to remortgage her house.

Trudi Yeatman, defending, said Frampton “found herself inundated with responsibility with too many things to do and not enough time to do it”.

She had initially banked money from dinner money and trip fees every day but found it “so burdensome” that she began to put it off, she said.

Miss Yeatman added: “She ended up with a filing cabinet in her office crammed with Tesco vouchers, cheques and cash. It was a complete mess.”

The court heard the school had no system of recording money flow.

Miss Yeatman said: “Simply this money came in, it went to the back of a filing cabinet and it stayed there. It wasn’t banked and nobody noticed.”

With an Ofsted inspection looming, Frampton took the money and vouchers home and dumped them in her wardrobe, Miss Yeatman said.

She added: “She deeply regrets her actions and is remorseful.”

Frampton worked at the school between 1997 and 2009 but her offending did not come to light until an audit in January, the court was told.

Kevin West, prosecuting, said: “During the period about £52,000 was paid to the school but only approximately £12,500 was banked.”

When police visited Frampton’s home in Fir Tree Avenue, Wallingford, they found about 19,000 Tesco schools vouchers worth about £600; £18,811 in cheques and £22,826.82 in cash.

The value of the cheques, some of which had expired and cannot be cashed, were about £10 each, Mr West said.

He added: “She paid £300 into her own account, which she told police was ‘to get rid of it’.”

Oxfordshire County Council reimbursed the school for the missing amounts.

Frampton was given six months’ jail, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to do 200 hours’ unpaid work.

Judge Anthony King said a two-year jail term would have been appropriate had some of the money not been recovered and had Frampton benefited more financially.

A school statement said: “The majority of the money has been recovered. We are attempting to recover further amounts. The school has put in place new accounting systems to ensure this cannot happen again.”