What they did not know was that Benjafield was busy not because he was working but because he was gambling away more than £1 million of their money in online casinos and betting shops.

Benjafield, 23, was told yesterday that he faces jail for the theft of a tenth of his company’s annual turnover. The money that had been held in a secure account to pay the taxman was siphoned off, with the result that the business collapsed and three people lost their jobs.

Dorchester Crown Court was told that Benjafield, who earned £16,000 a year, was spending more than his annual salary every day as his addiction to online gambling took hold. He was able to take the money because he held a position of trust within the company. It was not until a tax inspector telephoned about an outstanding bill that it was discovered the money had gone.

In one month Benjafield spent £187,000 betting on horse races and football matches and playing poker and other casino games. Over an 18-month period he spent a total of £1,047,550. Using his privileged position in the company he was able to transfer the funds into his Ladbrokes account.

After the hearing, Mike Jones, 45, the managing director of Charminster Ltd, Benjafield’s former employers, said: “I feel like I have been betrayed because I have known Benjafield since he was 17. He used to work as a part-time barman when I owned a pub and when I set up Charminster in 2002 I took him on as an accounts administrator.

“I had absolutely no idea he was doing this and it is quite ironic because at the end of the month he was the one always asking to borrow money.

“He used to tell me he was too busy to do stuff and he had a lot of work on, but in reality he was spending all his time on internet betting sites, gambling away our money.”

The court was told that Benjafield lacked a gambler’s lucky streak. His biggest single win was £75,000 but he managed to spend it again within days with another run of bad bets.

DC Paul Carpenter, of Dorchester CID, said: “This was an horrific breach of trust. Benjafield had no idea about the scale of what he was doing and it wasn’t until we examined his Ladbrokes account that the full extent was revealed. But that was just a sign of how out of control he was.

“It all came to light because a VAT bill went unpaid. The money Customs and Excise should have drawn out was in the account Benjafield was using. When they went to collect, the money wasn’t there.”

Benjafield admitted two counts of obtaining money transfer by deception, two counts of theft and one count of transfer of criminal property.

He was granted bail and will return to court be sentenced at a later date.

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