A crooked undertaker has been ordered to repay almost £5,000 in charity donations which he stole from funeral collections.

Robert Loveridge pocketed cash which was given in memory of family members or friends by the congregations at 26 different funerals.

He failed to pass on the money and left cheques in a filing cabinet instead of passing it on to the good causes it was intended for.

Loveridge, aged 62, has now been ordered to repay £4,842 to 10 of the 12 charities who he stole from.

He appeared at Exeter Crown Court under the Proceeds of Crime Act and was ordered to repay the money within 28 days or face a further six months in jail by Judge David Evans.

Miss Kelly Scrivener, prosecuting, said the amount by which Loveridge benefited from crime had been calculated as £4,842, and he had the ability to repay that amount from available funds.

In October last year, Loveridge, of Second Avenue, Teignmouth, admitted theft and asked for seven cases to be considered and was jailed for eight months by Judge Geoffrey Mercer, QC.

Loveridge was the sole operator of his Harris and Loveridge Funeral Directors in Teignmouth and used some of the charity cash to pay off pall bearers who he employed by the day.

He started his fiddle in 2007 and carried on stealing money until a bereaved daughter called two charities to check they had received donations from her mother and father’s funerals.

When they told her they had received no money or cheques, she called in the police and Loveridge admitted taking the cash. He had counted all the donations before he stole them, so detectives were able to work out how much he took.

The thefts took place over eight years and deprived 12 different charities of around £5,000.

The charities which will be repaid money are Rowcroft Hospice, the Children’s Hospice South West, the Macular Society, the British Heart Foundation, the Stroke Association, Dementia Society, Devon Air Ambulance, Teignmouth Coastwatch, the Teignmouth League of Friends, and the RNLI.

Mr Peter Seigne, defending, told an earlier hearing that Loveridge had always intended to repay the money.