A bank supervisor who embezzled £18,000 from HBOS handed himself in to police before the bank had realised that the money was missing.

A bank supervisor who embezzled £18,000 from HBOS handed himself in to police before the bank had realised that the money was missing.

Jamie White, 28, confessed to stealing the money from the branch near Edinburgh to pay off £30,000 of online gambling debts.

When his employers investigated, they found the counter supervisor had taken the cash in just two weeks at the Portobello branch.

White pled guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday to embezzling £18,120 from HBOS in Portobello High Street between January 28 and February 15 this year.

He will be sentenced next month after background reports. White joined the bank in 2005 as a customer assistant at the Leith branch then was promoted to counter supervisor in July 2007 and became responsible for balancing the cash at the end of the day.

On February 18 this year, he went to a police station and told them he had stolen money from the branch where he worked.

Fiscal depute Diana MacDonald, prosecuting, said the bank had been unaware there had been a problem until White went to Corstorphine police station. Solicitor Massimo D'Alvito, defending, said White, of South Gyle Mains, Edinburgh, was training to be a plumber and planned to pay back the money.