A FORMER manager at Barclays who was accused of involvement in a £112,000 scam to defraud customers has walked free from court after the charges against her were dropped.

Christiane Stoner, 43, was alleged to have printed off confidential customer information, images of customer signatures and supplied them to others for fraud purposes while based at the branch in Stirling in 2013.

At Falkirk Sheriff Court Stoner’s plea to a lesser charge of breaching the Data Protection Act by illegally possessing an image of one customer’s signature was accepted and she was fined £500.

Fiscal depute Graham McLachlan said the bank had become suspicious after an image of a customer’s signature that she was not entitled to possess had been downloaded on to her company laptop computer.

He added: That was not allowed under the data rules at the bank at that time.”

Subsequently, an inquiry was carried out and Stoner, of Carnbroe, South Lanarkshire, resigned.

Raymond McIlwham, defending, said Stoner had first appeared in court in Edinburgh in 2013, before it was discovered that the prosecution had been launched in the wrong jurisdiction, and, after legal argument, the time bar on the case was extended and it was transferred to the Sheriffdom of Tayside, Central and Fife.

He said Stoner, who now works for an organisation assessing dis- ability payments, was a separated mother-of-one of “previously impeccable character”, who had been “under a great deal of strain”.

He said: “Her marriage was in difficulties, some of her working habits would be careless, and both she and her colleagues were under real pressure as far as marketing quotas were concerned.”

He said she attributed her actions to having an “untidy” lifestyle at the time.

Sheriff John Mundy said she was facing a far less serious charge and his powers were limited to a fine.