A former Chantrey Vellacott accountant has been jailed for three years after he admitted stealing £235,000 from small businesses.

Yet Garry Hacker, an insolvency practitioner at Chantrey Vellacott, based at the Top 25 firm's Hove office, escaped having to pay back hundreds of thousands of pounds after declaring himself bankrupt.Instead, the 50-year-old father-of-four was ordered to pay back £1 as part of a nominal confiscation order imposed by Lewes Crown Court.

The court heard how Hacker, a former ICAEW member struck off in 2011 after a disciplinary tribunal hearing, had spent the illicit gains on his four children.