36-year-old divorced mother of two was spared from prison.

Former Harmony Club assistant manager Carol Jane Thomas was surrounded by relatives and friends after receiving a nine-month prison sentence suspended for a year after admitting stealing almost $30,000 from the Paget hotel.

The Court heard that Thomas, who worked at Harmony Club for 14 years, took $29,112 between October, 1991 and last January. She was going through a divorce and her husband was failing to pay child support.

Crown counsel Mr. Stephen Harrison said Thomas was responsible for the hotel's banking and bookkeeping and omitted entries of thousands of dollars from the receivable column in the account books.

He said the fraudulent method she used could have gone on indefinitely as long as she had control of the books.

At the end of December, 1991, the hotel's manager noticed $16,690 owed by an overseas travel agency to the hotel was outstanding.

But the agency said the amount had been paid on December 10, 1991.

Mr. Harrison said the manager later found other accounts had not been paid.

When questioned, Thomas, of Mission Lane, Pembroke, admitted stealing the money.

Thomas, who kept a personal record of the money she was taking, said she planned to pay the money back before being caught.

She was suspended from the hotel.

After a further meeting with the hotel's manager in January last year -- where she turned over documents representing the money she had stolen -- Thomas was fired and Police were contacted.

Mr. Harrison conceded Thomas cooperated throughout the entire investigation and made full restitution before she was fired.

This was confirmed by Det. Con. Neal Richardson of the fraud squad who said investigating the case would have been very complicated without Thomas' assistance.

Mr. Harrison said Thomas' case was similar to that of Teresa Maria DaSantos who stole some $24,000 from the Bank of N.T. Butterfield while employed there.

DaSantos, who also had children, received nine months in prison.

But Mr. Perry Trott, representing Thomas, disagreed the cases were similar. He stressed his client took the money to support her family.

"It was a case of desperation,'' he said. "She was a single parent with no one to turn to for assistance. It (the theft) occurred in a short time and she intended to pay it back.

"DaSantos' was out of greed.'' Puisne Judge the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward agreed, adding that DaSantos used the stolen money to buy clothes and jewellery.

Mr. Trott also produced a social inquiry report and letters showing the offences were totally out of character for Thomas.

He said the mother of a 12-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter was a born-again Christian who was "extremely embarrassed'' and "very, very sorry'' about the offences.

He noted that Thomas had recently received the outstanding employee award from St. George's Club where she now works as a sales representative.

In the social inquiry report Thomas was quoted as saying her punishment started when she was fired from Harmony Club and had to tell her children.

"The disgrace and dishonour will be with me always,'' she said.

"At the time I thought this was the only way to provide for them (the children). But I think being without food, clothing and shelter is better than being without each other.'' Before being sentenced, Thomas, who is now actively involved in Prison Fellowship, said: "I'm sorry about everything that has happened to my family.

My main concern is my children and what they will have to go through emotionally with my separation from them, not having the stability from another parent.'' Mr. Ward said: "This is a classic case of which the sentencing power of the court, in order to mark society's disapproval of this kind of conduct, should impose a custodial sentence unless there are special circumstances.

"In this case, special circumstances were that the report (of the theft) was made to Police after restitution.

"Immediate custodial sentence would not be in your interest, your employer's or society's. The offence was also out of character.''