A LETTING agent who conned clients out of £100,000 to feed his gambling habit has been jailed for 21 months.

Father-of-three Richard McCarthy, 34, was sentenced at St Albans Crown Court after it was revealed that he had gambled more than £160,000 in a year at one branch of William Hill bookmakers, losing more than £50,000.

McCarthy, of Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, wrote 270 cheques which bounced.

His business, McCarthy Woods, had managed between 300 and 400 properties for clients, including the Watford Property Company.

But McCarthy wanted his own business and in 2002, director Duncan Woods handed the reins over to McCarthy for a nominal £1, and in return McCarthy took on the company’s debts. Problems began when landlords were not being paid.

Those who managed to get hold of McCarthy were told the reason they had not got their money was the fault of the local authorities or the bank. Carole Perret, who fended inquires in the office, was told to pay those that "shouted longest and loudest", the court heard.

Mr Woods, who owned the Watford Property Company and worked in the same office as McCarthy, became worried about what was going on, the court was told.

In late 2002 he offered to buy the company back, but McCarthy refused. The business declined and went into liquidation, and police were called in.

Charles Judge, prosecuting, told the court that payments into the clients’ accounts fell from £100,000 a month to £50,000. By spring 2003, he had stopped paying money into the account. The bank manager was also concerned that McCarthy was taking out substantial sums from the account.

The sums owed generally ranged from between £2,000 and £4,000, to people with modest properties, mostly women.

Police arrested McCarthy in December 2003. He was bailed to appear in June 2004, when he was bailed again until January and charged with fraudulent trading.

McCarthy pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading in June, and was sentenced at the end of July.

Andrew Copeland, defending, said McCarthy quickly got out of his depth and tried to gamble large sums, hoping for a big win to pay his way out. He had paid some of the money back, with the help of wife, Natalie, who is dealing with her husband’s former clients with a new letting business. McCarthy had a new £30,000 job as a recruitment consultant and Mr Copeland asked the judge not to imprison him, so that he could continue to pay off debts and keep the family together.

But, sentencing, Judge Cripps said: "It seems to me that the evidence is you deliberately set out to defraud those persons that had trusted your company to collect rent. There has to be a custodial sentence for this offence."

McCarthy was also disqualified from being a director of a company for five years.