A former charity chief has been found guilty of defrauding his organisation out of more than £700,000.
John Briers, who was the head of Age Concern South Tyneside, used fake invoices and banked unauthorised bonus and pension payments between 2007 and 2015.
Briers, 57, of Woodstock Road, Gateshead, had denied three counts of fraud by abuse of position.
He will be sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court on 24 May.
Briers stole a total of £708,499, the jury heard.
He paid 60 fraudulent cheques amounting to £433,236 into his bank account as well as awarding himself £105,560 via 12 unauthorised bonuses and £169,703 through 19 unauthorised top-ups to his pension.
‘Deeply saddened’
The jury heard concerns were raised by a finance officer in August 2015 who had become worried about an invoice claiming to be from an architecture firm.
They were also told number of submitted invoices were not sequentially numbered and had no supporting documentation.
Briers claimed he had banked the cheques as reimbursement for paying suppliers from his own funds and said the original invoices had all been lost and replaced by substitutes.
Following the verdict, the charity said: “We are deeply saddened by this serious breach of trust and highly conscious of how much more might have been done by the local charity to help older people in the South Tyneside area if it had not happened.”
You can now donate to charity with your voice by asking Amazon’s Alexa.
Today, the tech giant announced a new feature called Alexa Donations, powered by Amazon Pay. Now, you can just say, “Alexa, donate $10 to UNICEF USA,” or any supported charity of your choice. Alternatively, you can say, “Alexa, make a donation,” and Alexa will ask you to pick a charity and dollar amount. Then, it uses your Amazon account payment info to complete the transaction.
Currently, users can only choose from 48 charities and nonprofits, including more commonly known ones like the American Red Cross and the American Cancer Society to internet-oriented groups like the Tor Project, Wikimedia Foundation, and the media site ProPublica. Amazon noted in a press release, “This is just the beginning — this list will continue to grow.”
According to the company, over a million people have used Amazon Pay to donate to charities already before Alexa Donations was launched. Amazon has also collaborated before with Give Back Box, which let users reuse Amazon boxes to ship donations to charities.
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has stepped in to protect members of Essex Savers net Credit Union Limited; which has stopped trading and is now in default. This means it cannot re-pay deposits to its 5000 members.
FSCS will compensate the vast majority of members within seven days. Using the credit union’s records, FSCS will send payments out automatically.
Members with up to £1,000 in their account will receive a letter to get cash over the counter at their local Post Office. Anyone with more than this will receive a cheque for their balance direct from FSCS.
For holders of a Child Trust Fund account with Essex Savers net Credit Union Limited, the process for FSCS to reimburse savings is different to that for other account holders. Payment can only be made to an alternative Junior ISA provider. The administrators (CVR Global LLP) will shortly be writing to the registered holders of Child Trust Fund accounts with Essex Savers net Credit Union with further information about this.
FSCS protects up to £85,000 of savings per person – double that for joint accounts. It has come to the aid of more than 4.5m people since 2001, while paying out over £26bn in compensation. FSCS expects the total pay-out for Essex Savers net Credit Union members to be £1.7m.
Mark Oakes, Head of Communications at FSCS, said:
“We are here to protect members of Essex Savers net Credit Union Limited, and we’re ready to help. Your savings are protected up to £85,000, and joint accounts are covered for £170,000. You should get your money back within the week. The process is automatic too, so you won’t have to apply for compensation.”
Any queries about Essex Savers net Credit Union Limited can be directed to the administrators, Kevin Murphy, Jason Maloney and Bai Cham of CVR Global LLP by post; c/o 7B Castlegate, York, YO1 9RN; telephone 01245 830520 or email at nick.hayles@nycu.org.uk
Essex Savers net Credit Union Limited was declared in default on 14 February 2018 with 5,000 members.
FSCS is the UK’s statutory compensation scheme for customers of authorised financial services firms. FSCS is funded by the financial services industry and protects investment business, deposits, home finance (mortgage) advice, and general insurance and insurance broking. FSCS can pay for financial loss if a firm cannot pay claims against it. We are independent and do not charge individual customers for using our service.
Before FSCS can declare a credit union in default and pay compensation to its members, it must be satisfied the credit union cannot repay deposits because of its financial circumstances, and has no current prospect of being able to do so.
As we are all aware the GDPR General Data Protection Regulation will be taking effect on 25 May 2018. The Alliance provides a platform for all community sector organisations to get involved in the conversation, share knowledge and experiences.
The 12 step plan is a good guide to work through so that we can be prepared for the upcoming changes. You can download the full 12 step plan here.
An event that has been highlighted by Maldon CVS may be of interest to you, for all details please click here.
Essex CVS and Volunteer Essex have partnered with Russell Cooke Solicitors to offer voluntary and community organisations in Essex the opportunity to attend a legal briefing on the forthcoming changes to the law surrounding Data Protection.
The General Data Protection Regulation will come into force in May 2018 and organisations are advised to update their existing policies and procedures to ensure they remain compliant. The forthcoming changes will affect all organisations that collect or use individuals’ personal information.
Russell-Cooke is recognised as one of the leading law firms advising charities in the UK and one of their Associate Solicitors Carla Whalen will be providing a half day seminar covering the changes and their impact for not for profit organisations, the legal bases for processing data, privacy notices and the rights of individuals.
The seminar will take place at Anglia Ruskin University on the 16th January 2018, 1pm. Places are £45 per person including light refreshments. Book online at https://gdpr-update.eventbrite.co.uk
Citizens Advice Essex is a member and supporter of The Alliance since its conception.
We aim to:
provide the advice people need for the problems they face.
The Citizens Advice Essex service offers information, advice and guidance through face-to- face, phone and digital services, with information available online via www.essexcab.org.uk or our national public website www.citizensadvice.org.uk
improve the policies and practices that affect people’s lives.
We’re not just here for times of crisis – we also use clients’ stories anonymously to campaign for policy changes that benefit the population as a whole. For example, we are currently campaigning for a ‘pause’ to the roll out of Universal Credit full service because of the poor experience and support experienced by claimants. Read more…
