Acting Senior Magistrate Carlisle Greaves called on the public for advice on Tuesday on what to do when a young mother in a position of trust stole from a bank customer.

Mr. Greaves spoke in Magistrates' Court in reference to a case involving a mother of three who admitted abusing her position as a bank teller to steal $5,000.

Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrosson told Plea Court how Bank of Butterfield employee Davita Vanessa Hunt was working as a teller in the bank on April 7 this year when she was approached by a customer.

The customer made two legitimate transactions, then left the bank.

The court then heard how Hunt, 22, of Alexandra Road in Paget, took a transaction slip and, using the customer's information, filled it out for a withdrawal of $5,000.

She then forged the customer's signature and took $5,000 in cash from her own drawer.

Hunt handed the transaction slip in to her supervisor at the end of the day along with all the other transactions.

On April 12, however, the customer noticed the missing $5,000 and contacted the bank.

After reviewing surveillance tapes, Police arrested Hunt and interviewed her.

She admitted to stealing the money, saying she had done so to pay medical bills for her sick child.

"She had a choice," Mr. Greaves said when duty counsel Leo Mills asked him to give Hunt the benefit of the doubt.

"It makes me cringe that I had my money at the bank that I worked so hard for ... and some young officer can just steal it. And I don't even know them."

Making it clear the young woman was going to jail, Mr. Greaves told Mr. Mills he had some work to do to convince him to allow a Social Inquiry Report to be conducted into the matter.

"We should be able to vote on these issues, you know," he said.

"When a civil servant is stealing from an ordinary man ... Everybody make the calls to the talk shows, write letters to the editor, tell me what I'm supposed to do when people do things that destroy your trust like that."

Concerned that an inquiry by Probation Services would only result in a slap on the wrist for the bank teller, Mr. Greaves added: "God help our accounts. I'm moving out mine ... Next thing, you lose your house."

Hunt also made a tearful plea to Mr. Greaves.

Saying she had three children, including her sick two year old and no insurance, she did not know what else to do.

The child had already been to the hospital three times, she said, and needed to be taken abroad for medical treatment.

"You made an application to the bank for a loan?" asked Mr. Greaves.

"No, I didn't," replied Hunt. However she added: "It wasn't an excuse ... I was trying to act in my daughter's best interests."

Defence lawyer Larry Mussenden, in court for another case, also spoke on behalf of Hunt.

"Clearly it is not in the public's interest in this day and age for a mother of three to be incarcerated," he said, arguing the benefits of a Social Inquiry Report.

Mr. Greaves bailed Hunt for $5,000 until September 24, when her Social Inquiry Report will be completed.