An Old Bailey judge has blasted his junior colleague for ‘ taking his eye off the ball ’ and passing an 'unlawful ' sentence when letting a BT manager dodge jail for a £28,000 expenses scam . Wheelchair-bound Christopher Starrs , 50 , was allowed to go free from court with just a suspended jail sentence in January after admitting his part in a two-and-a-half year con against his employer BT . Starrs , along with fellow BT Openreach manager Phillip Tamplin , invented clamped cars , overtime hours and damage to home owners ’ property during broadband installation , and paid off engineers to help them make the fake claims . Blasted : Judge Nicholas Cooke QC ( left ) blasted his junior colleague Recorder Stuart Trimmer QC ( right ) for 'taking his eye off the ball ' when he sentenced Christopher Starrs in January this year . Both Starrs and Tamplin , 53 , who made £124,000 from the con , admitted submitting the string of bogus expenses . Tamplin was jailed for two years at January 's sentencing hearing , but Mr Recorder Stuart Trimmer QC spared Starrs jail as an ‘ act of mercy ’ - although he ordered him to repay the money he took and pay a £1,500 fine . However , senior Judge Nicholas Cooke QC has now said the sentence was ‘ unlawful ’ - and added Starrs should have been sent to prison for his crimes . ‘ It was an unlawful sentence passed and now I need to do something to put it right , because it was negligence on the parties involved in the matter , ’ he said . ‘ He was mercifully dealt with , sadly by a judge who didn ’ t have his eye on the ball. ’ The judge told Mark Haslam , defending : ‘ The sentence was wrong but that ’ s a matter of personal opinion . ‘ Your client was fortunate to not go straight to prison . ‘ What the Recorder did was to impose a package of sentencing options that wasn ’ t available to him . ‘ No one appears to have noticed that the sentencing imposed on Mr Starrs was unlawful . ‘ I am sorry to be the headmaster but we really don ’ t want this sort of thing. ’ Fraud : Wheelchair-bound Starrs , 50 , was a manager with BT who admitted defrauding the company of £28,000 over two years . The Recorder , who is the head of 4 Bream Buildings chambers and took the Silk in 2006 , gave Starrs a 16-month jail sentence suspended for two years and ordered to pay a fine , and allowed the confiscation proceeds to continue . But Judge Cooke said it was not possible to imposed a financial penalty at the same time as postponing a confiscation order . Turning his fire on the barristers who were at the sentencing hearing , he added : ‘ This is supposed to be a centre of excellence , when you expect the representatives to point out what we can and can ’ t do . ‘ The judge should have been told what his powers were. ’ Prosecutor John Ojakovoh said Starrs offered a ‘ blank cheque ’ at sentencing and has already paid back the £28,000 he stole . After the judge heard the CPS will now drop the confiscation proceedings , he said the original sentence will stand , quipping : ‘ He no doubt thanks his lucky stars. ’ Both barristers admitted they had failed to spot the sentencing blunder at the time . The main fraudulent claim was for BT vehicles which had been ‘ clamped ’ by parking authorities . BT Openreach workers are allowed to claim back parking tickets on expenses as they are regularly forced to park their vans illegally to carry out their work . The company pays out around £1million in fines in London alone every year . Starrs and Tamplin used an authentic clamping ticket to reproduce reams of duplicates . Sentencing Recorder Trimmer , who has led a string of high-profile Serious Fraud Office prosecutions in the last two years , said : ‘ This was a sophisticated fraud perpetrated over a very long period of time . ‘ It involved over 100 or so false claims , made within the context of a large organisation that was open to fraudulent activity . ‘ Both of you were in the position of managers within that organisation and both well knew how open the organisation was to fraudulent activity . ‘ You both knew how it could be conducted , concealed and be made to benefit each of you personally. ’ Starrs , of Northolt , Middlesex , who had worked at BT since 1988 , was excused from sitting in the dock because he is in a wheelchair . He was not at court today due to a mix-up over whether he was required to attend .
Christopher Starrs was spared jail in an 'act of mercy ' by judge in January . But senior judge has now said his colleague took 'his eye off the ball ' Nicholas Cooke QC said wheelchair-bound Starrs should have been jailed . But added Starrs should thank his lucky stars as sentence allowed to stand .