Mum who stole £10k from pre-school escapes jail sentence

9:19am Monday 22nd March 2010

By Wiltshire Times Reporter

A mother-of-five who plundered thousands of pounds from a pre-school group leaving it bankrupt has walked free from court.

Claire Kirkham, 36, used the money as her own as she frittered away almost £10,000 on treats for herself over a two year period.

But after hearing that Kirkham had children aged from six months to 12 years old, a judge took ‘a merciful course’ and imposed a suspended sentence.

Lynne Henderson, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court on Friday that Kirkham became chairman of the Kingfisher Pre-School in Westbury in May 2006.

But within months she started to siphon cash from the charity, which runs the playgroup in Arundel Road.

The court was told that in late July 2008 wage cheques for staff bounced and other committee members became concerned about the finances.

Kirkham passed off the incident saying there had been a cashflow problem and would ask for their overdraft to be extended.

But one of the mums was not satisfied and asked to see the books, which had a number of cheques with blank stubs.

When she pointed them out, Kirkham demanded the accounts be returned and the blank stubs were for void cheques.

However inquiries with the bank showed they had been made out for cash and been countersigned by the other committee member.

It was soon discovered that Kirkham had asked two different committee members to countersign paycheques and not tell the other before cashing one of them.

She also transferred more than £3,380 from the charity’s building society account to her own and pinched £300 in cash in September 2006.

The committee called a special meeting where she denied any wrongdoing and resigned from her post.

After the police became involved she again said she was not involved, saying someone must have forged the cheques, causing detectives to call in a handwriting expert.

Kirkham, of Bremeridge Road, Westbury, pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and one of theft.

Ian Halliday, defending, said “She is at something of a loss to explain her misconduct.”

Her husband was in good employment and they had enough to get by on, but she used what she took on ‘frivolous things’ like treating herself to nice clothes.

“It was a breach of trust, yes, but there was nothing artful or sophisticated in the way the offences were committed,” he said.

He said if she were jailed it would cause massive problems for her family and pointed out she already suffered the punishment of losing her standing in the community.

Passing sentence Judge Charles Wade said: “In your capacity as the chairperson of this pre-school playgroup you systematically defrauded it and stole from it over a period of two years to an extent of just under £9,500. A significant sum.

“You were in a position of significant trust which you completely abused over that time to the financial detriment of that playgroup.

“As I understand it, it is still going but it was made bankrupt after you had taken the money you did.

“You exploited your position, took advantage of the fact you could draw cheques on the charity’s bank and effectively use the money as your own, which is what you effectively did.

“Then frankly to make matters worse you continued to deny you had done anything wrong.”

He imposed a nine month jail term, suspended for a year and told her to do 150 hours of community service.