The victims of an Abergavenny man who admitted to £14,000 of fraud but avoided going to jail have hit out at the leniency of the sentence.

Liam Pearce, 23, from Hoel Hamlin, was convicted earlier this month of nine counts of fraud - including taking more than £2,000 from hospital radio station NH Sound and opening numerous bank accounts and store cards in the names of the Mayor and Mayoress of Abergavenny, Martin and Alison Hickman.

He was sentenced last week at Newport Crown Court to 16 weeks' imprisonment suspended for 12 months, supervision for 12 months and ordered to pay £340 costs and an £80 victim surcharge.

Pamela Parry, station manager at NH Sound, told the Chronicle she felt Pearce should have had 'a real sentence'.

"To abuse the trust and steal from a charity is unforgivable, and I cannot believe he avoided jail. I have struggled to sleep, struggled to eat and all of us at the station feel that the judgement was despicable," she said.

Mayoress Alison Hickman (pictured) added, "While it didn't cost us money, the amount of sleepless nights and the constant worry deserve more than the sentence given to this man."

Pearce was known to the couple through Councillor Hickman's connections with NH Sound.

The series of offences began in January this year when he tried to cash a cheque for over £6,000 at Lloyds Bank in Abergavenny that was not made out to him.

A month later Mrs Hickman began to receive notice that orders had been placed at various retail outlets, including Very.co.uk and isme.co.uk, for laptops, diamond rings and phones.

At around the same time Pearce also began changing the personal details on Mrs Hickman's store cards and opened several bank accounts using her husband's name.

In May Pamela Parry also found that over £2,000 was missing from the NH Sound account to which Pearce had been given access to buy new computer software for the studio.

Another target later emerged, when Alan Chislett reported that someone had opened three bank accounts in his name - at Lloyds Bank, Ffrees Finance and NatWest.

The court heard that Pearce had been sentenced separately on August 14 for burglary at NH Sound, after he admitted stealing a computer, and was told he had made full admissions of all fraud incidents to the police.

After his sentencing on Friday October 24 by Judge Philip Richards, Alison and Martin Hickman gave their reaction to the Chronicle.

"I am disappointed that such a lenient sentence has been given," said Martin. "We see much harsher sentences for much lower level crimes across this country.

"While Alison and I may not have lost any money out of this, we were targeted and made to feel very worried for such a long time."

Mrs Hickman added, "I have never been a person to constantly check my bank accounts, but this has left me constantly in fear of whether this time a transaction he was attempting against me would be successful.

"While it didn't cost us money, the number of sleepless nights and the constant worry deserve more recognition than the sentence given to this man.

"He had all of my details, my mobile number, my date of birth, and was using it all against me.

"It all felt very personal and I am very disappointed that the outcome is a suspended sentence."

Pamela Parry took a similar view.

"We trusted him to help us out with our software when we were in a difficult situation and to know he abused that trust sickens me. We had a difficult start to the year with the robbery, which it turns out he was behind all along, and to see him receive such a small sentence made me feel physically ill."