A gun shop salesman has been jailed for looting £300,000 to fund his uncontrolled gambling addiction.

Aaron Saunders doctored stock records so he could steal valuable telescopic sights and other specialist kit from the Sportsman Gun Centre in Sowton, Exeter over two years. He did not steal any guns.

He also created bogus refunds which he paid into his own bank account and carried on fiddling money until he almost ruined the business.

Part of his fraud was uncovered by an internal investigation but he repaid £13,000 after being dismissed and the police were only called in when the directors realised that he had only admitted to a tiny proportion of his total dishonesty.

Detectives found that £316,256 had passed through his bank and Western Union accounts and all had eventually been paid out to online gambling companies.

Saunders, aged 29, of Higher Furlong Road, Cranbrook, admitted fraud by employee and was jailed for two years and two months by Judge David Evans at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him he was reducing the sentence because Saunders is genuinely remorseful, has addressed his gambling addiction and taken on family responsibilities in the three years since the offences were committed.

He added: “A concealed and persistent fraud of this magnitude and duration can only be dealt with by immediate custody.”

Mr Paul Grumbar, prosecuting, said the directors of the gun centre started an investigation in 2019 because profits were falling despite sales increasing.

They uncovered a fraud in which Saunders was raising false refund payments which he diverted to his own bank account. He was dismissed, repaid £13,000, but the police were not called at that stage.

The company then found further refunds which he had not admitted and the police were called in. Investigators then uncovered the larger fraud in which large amounts of stock were stolen and sold.

A financial inquiry showed almost identical amounts going out of Saunders’s bank accounts to online gambling companies.

The gun centre is Britain’s largest online retailer of shooting and country sports accessories with a staff of 50 but its directors feared for its future as a result of the fraud, which was uncovered in 2019.

They have now made a full recovery.

Miss Felicity Payne, defending, said Saunders has made great improvements to his life since 2019 and managed to control his gambling addiction, find work, and start a new relationship.

He is very sorry for what he did and would like to try to repay the money in the future.