A letting agent who stole from student tenants to fuel his ‘uncontrollable’ drug habit has walked free from court.

He has been ordered to repay his victims, but they will wait years to get all their money back.

Edward Fisher, an ex-Royal Marine, pleaded guilty to ten counts of theft by an employee after pocketing £5,113 from tenants of Manchester-based Sherlock Homes.

Fisher, 33, plundered cash between December 2014 and June 2015 by getting the tenants unknowingly to put money into his own bank accounts.

He was given a 24-week sentence, suspended for 18 months, at Manchester Magistrates’ Court.

Deputy district Judge Julian Gooze also ordered Fisher to pay £200 to each of his ten victims and complete 300 hours of unpaid work.

Fisher will pay back the £2,000 at the rate of £5 a week – meaning it will be some eight years before his victims finally get their money.

The court also heard how Fisher was convicted in 2013 for stealing £787 from a former employer.

Kerry Bell, prosecuting, told the court eight of Fisher’s victims were students; one was the mother of a student; and one was the owner of Sherlock Homes, director Helen Armstrong.

Fisher, who is now on benefits, was offered another job after leaving Sherlock Homes. But when his picture appeared on the front page of the Manchester Evening Post earlier this month, the offer was withdrawn.

The paper’s full story, which includes statements from Fisher’s victims, is here

As the law currently stands, there is nothing to stop letting agents being banned from the industry, whether working in it, setting up their own agencies, or going into residential estate agency sales businesses.

However, the new Housing and Planning Bill going through Parliament will introduce bans and a blacklist – the latter  only seen by central and local government, but not by tenants or by estate or letting agency employers looking for more staff. Bans would be as short as two years.