A Bank of Bermuda employee who was sacked last year along with a number of colleagues for operating an IOU system with customers' money was accidentally re-employed in a temporary position, The Royal Gazette has learned.

Single mother Laura Correia is now wondering as to why she was not allowed to stay on at the bank and why she had been told never to apply there for work again.

Ms Correia lost her job in January last year in a scandal that a group of staff at the Business Banking Centre were borrowing cash from the bank without official permission and paying it back a day or two later.

She said she spent six months out of work, before the bank took her back on, offering her a six-month contract in a non-cash post at the branch in Bermudiana Road.

The 28-year-old, of Parsons Road, Pembroke, claimed she was told by bosses that she could apply for permanent positions within the bank while on temporary contract, providing it was not in retail. And she claimed she was even told by one of her managers that they would help her find a permanent job.

But it seems managers realised an error had been made in taking her back, and told her she had no future with the Bank of Bermuda.

Yesterday, Ms Correia said the bank had admitted to her that she should never have been re-employed at the bank, and therefore when her contract came to an end, she had to leave.

But she questioned how that had been allowed to happen.

And she said she believed she should never have been sacked in the first place.

“I would never have taken the temporary contract if I had known there would be no chance of a permanent job at the end of it,” she said.

“The temporary job did not pay very well and if I had known it wasn't going to lead to anything better at the bank, I would not have stayed all this time.

“I feel as though I have been treated badly. I did nothing wrong in the first place and I want to clear my name. There were a lot of people doing IOUs, and we had been told that it was OK by one of our superiors. No money was stolen - everything was paid back. As far as we were concerned, we were able to do it.

“The bank took me back on and I thought everything was going to be fine. But now I am without a job again and have been told not to apply there again.

“How am I supposed to support my eight-year-old son and keep an apartment. I have no income.

“I am being made to pay for the bank's mistake.”

A Bank of Bermuda spokeswoman said: “In the course of running a large organisation, incidents do occasionally occur.

“We have procedures in place to bring such incidents to light and deal with them appropriately. Doing so is essential in running a sound business.

“The incident at the Business Banking Centre last year was treated with great seriousness and the appropriate action was taken in line with our procedures.

“It subsequently came to light that, against bank policy for terminated employees, Ms Correia had been taken on (on) a temporary contract, in a non-cash handling position at the bank.

“The contract was allowed to run its full course. As I hope people will understand, we do have an obligation of confidentiality surrounding our employee matters, which means we are unable to speak in any further detail about this case.”