A city accountant who swindled his bosses at Deloitte out of more than £90,000 with bogus taxi expenses to bankroll a secret gambling addiction has been spared prison.

Gurgyan Singh Kaley, 29, forged and duplicated receipts for more than 1,000 bogus Uber rides over the course of three years while working for the accounting giant’s real estate tax team.

The fraud was uncovered last September when human resources noticed an “unusually high volume of taxi claims” from Kaley, and discovered that he had also falsely claimed money for subscriptions to his professional body.

Inner London crown court heard that Kaley had been using his expenses account to help fund an online gambling addiction which had cost him at least £1 million over five years.

Judge Benedict Kelleher yesterday sentenced him to a two-year suspended prison term and ordered him to pay back £75,000 to Deloitte. “It’s an addiction to gambling you suffer from, and an addiction which is not easily overcome,” he told Kaley. “Like all gamblers you failed to make a profit and were running up substantial debts. It is clear from the expenses you were submitting and evidence of the things you were gambling on, you were becoming increasingly desperate.”

Prosecutor Peter Lancaster told the court that Kaley’s expenses claims went through largely unchecked but were flagged to Deloitte’s HR team in September after there were £28,000 worth of taxi ride claims in just seven weeks.

Kaley also submitted nine duplicate claims for subscriptions to the Institute of Chartered Accountants, raking in an extra £4,104.

Evan Cranfield, mitigating, said Kaley stopped gambling on the day of his arrest and revealed his addiction to friends and family.

He said Kaley realised that his accounting career was in tatters but intended to pay back all the money he stole by cashing in a £65,000 pension pot.

Kaley, of Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud by abuse of position. He was also ordered to complete 300 hours of community service and attend 10 days of rehab.