AN ASDA manager was jailed and two others were given suspended sentences for stealing more than £15,000 of stock.

Michael Gridley, 26, of Brennan Road, Tilbury, was sentenced to 12 months in prison at Southend Crown Court last week for his leading part in a conspiracy to steal from Asda, at the Eastgate Centre, Basildon, between November 2013 and April 2014.

Section leader Jay Reed, 23, of Hempstalls, Basildon, and James Munyard, 21, of Witchards, Basildon, were given suspended sentences of eight and four months, respectively. All had pleaded guilty.

Gridley, the former home shopping manager of the store, orchestrated a system under which items such as alcohol, cigarettes, DVDs, computer games and consoles were taken from the store and, via the home delivery service, taken to Reed’s address and were presumed to have been sold on.

Prosecuting, Thomas Daniel, told the court when Gridley was ill, those deliveries stopped, and when he recovered they started again.

Mitchell Cohen, the barrister representing Munyard, told the court his client, whose role was confined to taking items off shelves and putting them in a crate, had attempted to be transferred in order to escape Gridley’s control.

Despite hearing Gridley was now employed as a manager at Lidl, in Romford, Recorder Pounder said he had no choice but to send him to prison.

Sentencing Reed to eight months imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, and 200 hours’ unpaid work, he said: “Without that and your part in the enterprise, it would not have worked.”

Munyard, was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and 100 hours’ unpaid work.