A former police exhibits officer has been jailed for four years after stealing about £88,000 in cash seized as evidence from a police safe in Derbyshire.

Michelle Reason, 54, from Buxton, was working as an exhibits officer with Derbyshire Constabulary when she took the money, which had been seized following criminal investigations. She pleaded guilty to one count of theft and one count of misconduct in public office at Derby Crown Court on Monday 9 November, and was sentenced at the same court later that day to four years and two months.

In her role, Reason was responsible for safeguarding the force's evidence. Instead, the Crown Prosecution Service said, she abused her position over a period of three years.

The thefts began during a cash count

Her offending began in March 2023, when she stole £15,000 while helping to count a large quantity of cash held as evidence. After spending that money, she continued taking cash from the police safe to pay for household bills and day-to-day living costs.

The money she took included both sterling and foreign currency. She said she was likely to have spent some of the missing euros during a holiday to Spain.

She handed herself in to police

Reason later handed herself in and admitted the thefts to officers at St Mary's Wharf police station, where she was arrested. Police recovered cash and evidence bags, many of them empty. She acknowledged taking the money without permission but said she had always intended to repay it.

Malcolm McHaffie, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Michelle Reason stole money she was trusted to protect, exploiting her position for her own benefit and risked jeopardising the police's efforts to catch criminals."

McHaffie, a Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor and head of the CPS Special Crime Division, added: "Safeguarding evidence is essential to the integrity of criminal investigations, and her dishonesty was a serious betrayal of the standards the public rightly expects from its police officers."

A breach of trust in a trusted role

Exhibits officers are entrusted with looking after money, drugs, weapons and other items seized by police so that they can be produced as evidence in court. The prosecution said Reason's offending risked undermining criminal investigations, because evidence that cannot be accounted for can weaken cases against the people from whom it was seized.

Reason was sentenced to four years and two months in prison at Derby Crown Court on 9 November 2026.