A paedophile awaiting sentence for downloading videos of girls believed to be as young as eight being sexually abused admitted stealing more than £35,000 from his employers when he appeared at Richmond Magistrates' Court last week.

Marc Hope, 29, of St George's Road, Richmond, pleaded guilty on Friday, January 11, to a charge of stealing £35,779 from Nationwide Building Society branches in East Sheen and Fulham between September 8, 2003 and March 19, 2006.

The pervert is currently waiting to be sentenced by Kingston Crown Court after a raid by Feltham's child abuse team following the interception of a DVD featuring girls under 18 called Miss Jr Beauty Pageant, which was set to be delivered to his home.

At a previous hearing, the court heard 13 images at grade four were found on Hope's computer - this classification refers to images of children being sexually penetrated by an adult. Twelve of these images were video clips and one showed sickening abuse lasting more than 33 minutes and the vile catalogue contained rape footage of girls believed to be only six years old.

Hope also pleaded guilty to the possession of four grade three images, 216 at grade one and a further two charges of possessing indecent videos with the titles Child Lover and Zadoom Pedo.

On Friday, Mrs Milner, prosecuting, told the court that Hope, who worked his way up to branch manager at the building society, used to reach inside the cash machines and pull out quantities of cash.

"He said he took the money to fund his lifestyle," she added. "It became a habit and he did it when he didn't need it. He has repaid all the monies."

The bench decided to send the case to the crown court to be sentenced and released him on bail.