A SACKED pub manager has been jailed after giving away free drinks and running off with more than £18,500 cash takings in revenge for the way he lost his job.

Robert Bold, who managed The Packhorse, in West Common, Gerrards Cross, was jailed at Aylesbury Crown Court on Friday after he admitted stealing a total of almost £21,500 in cash and stock from the Bass Leisure Retail Group before fleeing to Norfolk.

Richard Sothcott, prosecuting, told the court how the 37-year-old, of Garston Crescent, Watford, learnt he was to be replaced by a new manager when Bass announced it was to shut The Packhorse for renovation in October 2000.

But when builders turned up to begin work later that month they found the pub deserted except for a note from Bold, which read: "To all at Bass. Thanks for taking the p*** out of your managers. Here's my gesture to you. See you in court."

Mr Sothcott explained that on October 18, Bass told Bold to start running pub stocks down to prepare for the pub's closure. But Bold was furious after claiming he received his P45 from the firm while still negotiating his terms of departure. He had hoped for another position in the group.

Bold left The Packhorse in a mess and checks later revealed stock losses of £2,934. Takings of £18,500 had also not been banked and were missing, along with Bold, who had fled to Dereham, Norfolk.

Police only caught up with Bold when he gave himself up in Norfolk on November 18 last year. He told investigators he had resented the lack of notice he had been given by Bass, now operating under the name Six Continents Retail.

Bold revealed he had given free drinks away to locals "so that a great deal of stock was dissipated". He claimed he had originally taken the money to use as a bargaining tool but ended up spending it to live off after leaving The Packhorse.

Richard Merz, mitigating, said Bold, who pleaded guilty to theft at Beaconsfield Magistrates Court on November 26 last year, had got depressed and had made two attempts on his life, the second of which had led him to give himself up.

Judge David Morton Jack said 15 months imprisonment was the least sentence he could impose for a "breach of trust of this magnitude".