A SENIOR council officer based in Trowbridge fiddled his expenses after taking his wife and granddaughter with him on a business trip to Edinburgh.

David Head took them for meals at two Edinburgh restaurants then claimed the cost back from his Wiltshire County Council bosses.

Former RAF squadron leader Head, 64, of Canters Way, Minety, admitted two counts of false accounting at Gloucester Crown Court.

He was conditionally discharged for a year, ordered to pay £600 costs and repay the £97.50 cost of the meals to the council.

Nine other false accounting charges which he denied were not proceeded with. He was formally acquitted of four charges and five others were left on file.

The court heard that as the county's chief emergency planning officer based in Trowbridge, Head had to go to meetings across the country. He was allowed to claim his own travelling and subsistence expenses but not anyone else's, said Michael Butt, prosecuting.

"Between January 1999 and May 2001 his claims for expenses revealed a number of discrepancies," Mr Butt said.

"In July 1999 he submitted a claim for £218.88 for a trip to a conference in Edinburgh. He said it was for accommodation, parking and meals. These included lunch and dinner at the Omar Khayam restaurant, £50.60, and lunch and dinner at the La Piazza for £46.90."

Mr Butt said Head put in photocopies of the bills. One from the Omar Khayam had the number of covers obliterated. This would have shown how many meals were served.

Mr Butt said: "He was arrested and was interviewed three times by police. In his first interview he confessed his wife had accompanied him and had dined with him.

"When interviewed on the second and third occasions he said the real reason for the alteration of the receipts and overpayment of expenses was that his granddaughter and his wife had accompanied him and because of various family difficulties he had not wanted his granddaughter's parents to know."

David McFarlane, defending, said: "This is a tragedy for David Head. He is a man who until today was a man of unblemished honour and honesty. He has resigned from his post and is suffering stress and medical problems for which he is being prescribed treatment."

His financial circumstances were modest a military pension of £12,720 a year, he said.

Judge Gabriel Hutton told him: "Because of this piece of dishonesty you have punished yourself considerably by the fact that you have lost your formerly very good character and that in itself is a very real punishment."