DISABLED people will suffer a double whammy thanks to the crooked actions of an ex-city council employee.

Timothy Valentine Metcalfe, 44, the former principal access officer, was this week given 20 months imprisonment for stealing more than £92,000 from his former employers and disabled people, but will serve just half his sentence.

Council deputy leader Stephen Mosley (Handbridge & St Mary’s) said the theft, mainly from the council and Chester Access Group, which ran the Chester Shopmobility scheme – hiring out scooters – had left ‘a hole’ in the budget.

As a result of Metcalfe’s actions, Shopmobility was put out to tender, resulting in a 50% hike in costs which meant there was no funding left to provide live commentary for the visually impaired at special events, no money to promote an organ donor scheme and no money for other access related services.

Chester Crown Court heard Metcalfe used the money to fund a ‘hedonistic’ lifestyle involving gambling, alcohol, a series of girlfriends in Thailand and following his beloved Middlesbrough Football Club.

Cllr Mosley told the BBC: ‘It’s absolutely atrocious. As a council we are disgusted with Mr Metcalfe’s actions. He has let down the people who counted on him most – the elderly and the disabled that he was meant to be there to protect.’

Asked how Metcalfe was able to get away with his crimes over a period of six years, Cllr Mosley blamed the previous Lib Dem/Labour administration who ran the council until May.

Metcalfe also stole £210 on February 1, 2007 and £20 the following day, from a local branch of the National Federation for the Blind, for whom he had acted as treasurer before disappearing to Thailand.

Peter Hussey, prosecuting, said Metcalfe, who had earned £41,000 a year, handed himself into police on his return.

He said: ‘What came to light at the beginning of the year was that funds were being diverted away to cash for his own personal hedonistic lifestyle.’

Mr Hussey said Metcalfe breached the trust of a visually-impaired co-signatory at the National Federation of the Blind whom he would ask to sign blank cheques.

‘His motivations were that he had a drink addiction and a gambling addiction, both of which are notorious for frittering away money to a level never really comprehended by the person frittering it away,’ said Mr Hussey.

He said Metcalfe, a Middlesbrough FC fan, also spent ‘a lot of money’ going to matches, liked going to Thailand and had a series of girlfriends’.

Ashley Barnes, defending, said Metcalfe should be given credit for handing himself over to police and his guilty pleas. He said his client had given up gambling but still had a drink problem.

Peter Westwood, president of the National Federation of the Blind, said afterwards: ‘The branch books were always meticulously forwarded to the Federation’s accountants and Metcalfe’s duplicity was not discovered until he confessed to the offences.’