A WOMAN has spoken of her anger after a worker she treated as a “surrogate daughter” admitted stealing more than £17,000 from the company.

Danielle Pisani, 34, admitted six counts of fraud while she was business manager at Moors Health and Beauty head office, in Tendring, between December 2013 and October last year.

Pisani, of Springfield Meadows, Little Clacton, had worked at the company – which has salons in Clacton and Colchester – for more than ten years alongside founder Sharon Moor.

The pair became close friends and Pisani had helped run the business when Miss Moor was suffering from a viral infection while she waited for a kidney transplant, ChelmsfordCrown Court heard.

Miss Moor died in March 2013 and her family – including mother Freda – carried on the salons in her memory and for her son, Harvey.

After Sharon’s death, Pisani continued working for the company and supported the family emotionally whilst they were grieving.

But in October 2014, Mrs Moor, of Heath Road, Tendring became suspicious after checking some holiday wages paperwork and found Pisani had overpaid herself.

Further checks of business accounts, payments and bank statements revealed a web of deceit where she had taken cash and goods worth £17,738.

Read the full story in the Clacton Gazette, out now.