AN ACCOUNTANT has appeared in court accused of stealing more than £250,000 from a Swindon company.

Anthony Seymour, 39, is accused of 17 charges of theft and 17 charges of false accounting.

He is alleged to have stolen a total of £273,000 from Bonar Automation, a Cheney Manor-based subsidiary of a Leeds company.

Seymour, of Tracy Close, Abbey Meads, is alleged to have carried out the offences between June 1997 and February this year.

Sums alleged to have been stolen range from £898 in July 1997 to more than £41,000 in July 1998.

The case was adjourned by Swindon magistrates until November 9. Seymour, who did not plea to the charges, was granted unconditional bail.