An engineer working at a Bristol cash processing centre who committed a "serious breach of trust" when he helped himself to £26,540 worth of £20 notes has walked out of court with a suspended prison sentence.

Cash-strapped Alan Haste was grieving over the death of a daughter when he attempted to steal his way out of his difficulties.

The 55-year-old's "gross error of judgement" was detected when the Bank of England found that cages of unusable notes destined for its incinerator were a few pounds light.

Haste, of Blatchford Road, Ivybridge, Devon, admitted a single charge of theft. He was handed a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months and ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work in the community.

He will also be supervised for 12 months during which he will be helped with his financial and emotional problems.

Eric Waley, prosecuting at Bristol Crown Court, said Haste was employed by a company that supplied and serviced two bank processing machines at the Royal Bank of Scotland's cash processing centre at Patchway when he repeatedly stole money.

He said the notes were from a section of the centre that dealt with unfit notes which sorted damaged cash for redistribution back to the Bank of England where they would be burnt. At the end of April, Mr Waley said the centre's investigations manager was asked to look at cash discrepancies there.

He said shortfalls had been found in the £2,500 bundles of £20 notes and on April 14 Haste was shown on CCTV footage going to a cash machine twice and removing the back and side panels which would give him access to cash.

The court heard that a total of 88 bundles had £20 notes missing, worth a total of £26,540.

"On every occasion, with one exception, Haste had been working at the time," said Mr Waley.

He said the defendant was interviewed by the investigations manager and admitted he had removed unfit £20 notes.

In police interview the defendant said £6,000 of the £26,540 unfit notes he had taken were actually usable.

Sam Jones, defending, said his client took the notes because they were going to be destroyed anyway and there had not been a loss to anyone. He told the court there had been a lot of tragedy in his client's life, including the death of a daughter, and he appeared in court a "broken man."

Sentencing Haste, Judge Martin Picton said: "At 55 you are in a position that no one of good character would ever want to be in. Your life, in many ways, is in tatters. You are deeply shamed of what you have done.

"I'm conscious of tragedies in your life and the circumstances surrounding the gross error of judgement in the way you tried to steal your way out of a problem in a way that was going to be detected."

"It gained you £6,000 or thereabouts. You were not entitled to that money, though it hasn't produced a loss to another.

"It was a serious breach of trust because you were given access to a secure place and you did it repeatedly."