AN army officer who plundered more than £200,000 from the taxpayer to educate his children at a top private school will only have to repay half.

And if Lieutenant Colonel Robert Jolleys, 54, is successful in the New Year in his appeal against conviction he won't have to hand over anything at all.

At a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Swindon Crown Court, Judge Peter Blair QC ruled that Jolleys benefitted from his offending to the tune of £232,143.28p.

But he found he only had £98,953.02p in realisable assets, and gave him six months to hand over the cash or receive an 18-month jail term.

The order means Jolleys, known by his middle name of Henry, may be forced to sell houses which he owns part shares in to make the payments.

He tried to get the court to rule out his one-eighth stake in the home where his 90-year-old widower father lives, saying it is not immediately realisable.

The former Shrivenham-based officer said he and his three siblings had been given equal shares of his mum's half of the property when she died in 2010.

He said the situation had caused problems in the family and would have a terrible impact on his frail father who has skin cancer and heart disease.

But the judge ruled that the £21,356 share he has in the property near Blackburn, Lancashire, should be included in his realisable assets.

The court heard he also had more than £60,000 tied up in another house as well as other assets.

Jolleys, who has already served his one-year jail term, is due to have his case heard in the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, January 14.

He was stationed at the Defence Academy in Shrivenham when he cheated the system between 2004 and 2009.

The officer claimed cash to send his three sons to the exclusive £28,000-per-year Roman Catholic Stonyhurst College, in Lancashire.

He got a 90 per cent subsidy on the fees under the Army's Continuing Education Allowance.

The scheme allows service personnel to send children to boarding school to prevent disruption to schooling caused by postings around the UK and abroad.

Because he had separated from wife Judith he was no longer entitled to it, but he kept up the elaborate charade by telling superiors they were still together in Army quarters.

And the ruse was only rumbled when his now ex-wife rang his superior officer in the summer of 2009 and asked "Where's Henry?" sparking an investigation.

Jailing him in March last year, Recorder Jeremy Wright said he had committed a 'serious, substantial fraud'.

"This is not just a case of letting things slip," the judge said.

"On each of these occasions you deliberately... made declarations to obtain the money you obtained and make the fraud. You are an intelligent man and knew what you were doing."

Jolleys, of Clitheroe, Lancashire, denied any wrongdoing but was convicted following a trail in January 2013.

The jury found him guilty of three counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception, three of fraud and one of the forgery when he signed his ex-wife's signature on a bank form.