A new debit card had to be issued to Marlow Town Council after fraudsters cloned the original and attempted to spend more than £360 in total online.

On December 11, town clerk Hilary Martin discovered four pending transactions that had not been actioned by officers.

They were immediately reported to Lloyds and identified as fraud by the bank, which confirmed that the debit card had been cloned as all of the transactions were made online with an IP address traced to Lewisham.

The four amounts – £90.90, £97.94, £92.26 and £81.99 – were all refunded.

The town council said Lloyds has now completed a full investigation but was unable to find the source of the cloning.