A DISGRACED charity worker who stole more than £140,000 from a trust for disadvantaged young people faces a “substantial” jail term, a judge said today.

John Lakeman, 67, admitted stealing £145,000 from Wiltshire young people's charity the Broad Town Trust between 2000 and 2012 while he was an auditor.

He claimed he stole the money to pay his gay lover who was blackmailing him.

But prosecutors insist Lakeman stole £212,000 and refuse to accept the defendant’s version of events.

A special hearing was due to be held at Salisbury Crown Court today to establish the facts of the case, but Judge Barnett declined to hear evidence on the matter.

Judge Barnett said: “That’s a vast amount of money taken in the most appalling circumstances and it will be visited by a most substantial term of imprisonment.

“Once it’s over £20,000, it’s over £20,000. It doesn’t make the slightest difference to me.

“The overall deficit is going to be measured in six figures.

“If he was being blackmailed then so be it.”

Prosecuting, James Kellam said the Crown did not accept that Lakeman had been blackmailed.

“The fact is that he stole it,” said Mr Kellam.

Representing Lakeman, Megan Topliss argued that “huge sums of money” had gone to the alleged blackmailer.

The prosecution said a man had been arrested and interviewed but had denied any offence and was released without charge.

Judge Barnett said the blackmail claims were of little importance.

“What he does with the money, whether it’s gambling or a luxurious lifestyle, he’s going to get very little sympathy from me,” he said.

“He should have gone straight to the police.

“It cuts no ice at all.

“This is a very large amount of taken over a very long time, when thoroughly decent people had invested their trust in him and a vast number of people had invested money in the charity and he abused his position in an appalling fashion.

“There can, in my view, be only one outcome.”

Ms Topliss said her client accepted his actions were a breach of trust of his position and said he was a man of good character.

Judge Barnett said: “The basis of your plea is that over ten years you took something in the order of £145,000 from the Broad Town Trust of which you had held an important position and were trusted.

“This is an extremely serious matter and is almost certain to end in only one way for you, and that is a substantial sentence of imprisonment.”

Lakeman, of St Edmund’s Church Street, Salisbury, was bailed until February 23 when he will be sentenced for ten counts of theft.

He was involved with fundraising for Salisbury Hospice for 20 years, up to 2011.

He became involved with the hospice when it was set up in 1981 and took over as fundraising coordinator in 1997.