A school cleaner who stole 25 iPads was caught on camera stuffing the devices down her trousers.

Christ Church Primary School, in Streatham, South London, initially thought pupils had taken them home accidentally.

Staff became more concerned over time and CCTV was installed in the school’s IT suite, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Footage showed Fiona Rabess, 29, in the area, which she was not assigned to clean, stuffing thousands of pounds-worth of iPads into her trousers.

Some of the devices were later recovered from a pawnbroker in Brixton, where she had sold them.

The sales were linked to Rabess by police after the pawnbroker sent them back upon seeing stickers with the school’s logo on them.

Two iPads were also found at her home address in Streatham.

Cleaner admitted theft from school

On Monday, Rabess was sentenced at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court to a 12-month community order, told to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay back £600 for some unrecovered devices.

Rabess had pleaded guilty to five counts of theft between October 2017 and June 2018 at an earlier court hearing.

Senior Crown Prosecutor Robert Short said: “Fiona Rabess had worked at the school for more than two years and was a trusted member of cleaning staff.

“However, she used her access into the building to take educational tools away from schoolchildren for her own financial gain. 

“Rabess initially claimed the iPads were a gift from the school’s caretaker for her ‘amazing’ work cleaning the toilets but the prosecution’s case against Rabess was so strong that she had little choice but to plead guilty to the thefts.”