A financial controller who stole £800,000 from his employer to fund an extravagant lifestyle has been jailed.

James Mann, of Church Lane, Loughton, almost put Waltham Abbey-based telecoms firm Commsense out of business by using company money to write huge cheques for his own benefit.

The 59-year-old initially denied a £1.1 million fraud involving 13 separate charges, but later changed his plea and admitted one £800,000 offence of fraud by abuse of position.

Mann ran the con between May 2010 and July 2015, after being hired by Commsense managing director, Barry Moore, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Peter Gair, told the court: “As far as Mr Moore was aware this defendant did a good job. He was entrusted to run the financial side. Indeed Mr Moore regularly pre-signed cheques.”

But, he said Mann used those cheques to make them payable either to himself or his own company, SVI Marine Ltd.

He also created a false accounting trail with the cheque stubs and computerised accounting systems to show that the payee was supposedly a legitimate customer.

Mann was suspended in 2014 and dismissed in 2015 over excessive corporate hospitality at events.

Mr Gair added: “Commsense then realised it was not corporate hospitality which had been abused but pure fraud of writing cheques to himself.”

In a written impact statement read to court, Mr Moore said his firm’s reputation had been affected and it had lost out on potential clients because of a lack of funds.

He also said he had been affected by worry over possibly losing his company and having to make his 28 staff members redundant.

Mitigating, Robyn Murdo-Smith said: “Mann found himself in an environment where he was expected to sort out a massive mess and left to cope largely without supervision.

“He says on reflection he should have walked away and left and not got involved. He doesn’t know what came over him or why he did it.

“He took the money owed to him and to clear debt but instead of stopping at around £200,000 he stayed on and took more and more money. He wasted money. He has nothing to show for it.”

Mr Murdo-Smith said Mann felt pleading guilty “was easier than having to tell his nine-year-old son he was going to prison for a long time”.

Mann now faces proceedings to confiscate his assets, which include his share in the detached house in Loughton, although the prosecution claimed Commsense is unlikely to recoup all of its funds.

The court heard Mann had previously been jailed in 1983 for four years for 28 offences of theft by employee.

Jailing him for a further five years on Friday (September 1), Judge Patricia Lynch QC told Mann: “You almost finished off your good friend’s company and it’s only through his endeavour and hard work that the company just about survived your actions.”

She said Mann used the money to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

She added: “It was money that went to make your life pleasant but to the detriment of your once friend and close colleague.

“It also put the livelihoods and jobs of the people who worked for the company at risk.”