Charity treasurer helped himself to funds

Oct 6 2011 by Alistair Watson, West Lothian Courier

A CHARITY boss has slammed the treasurer of a grandparents’ self help group who helped himself to their funds.

Richard Stedman embezzled £500 of West Lothian-based Grandparents Apart Self Help Group’s funds.

The offence came to light because the 63-year-old failed to file annual accounts for the charity with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, the independent regulator and registrar of Scottish charities.

Other office bearers at the charity got copies of the bank statements and discovered that the £500 had not been accounted for.

They called an emergency meeting and asked Stedman to explain himself but when he refused to respond they called in the police.

Katie McNair, prosecuting, said Stedman had been responsible for banking the charity’s money and doing the accounts.

He was detained after cops seized financial documents from his home.

When cautioned and charged he admitted: “Yes, I took the money.

“I regret doing it, but the circumstances I was in at the time meant I had no other option.”

Stedman, of Church Place, Longridge, pled guilty to embezzling the money in 2009 when he appeared for sentence at Livingston Sheriff Court last week.

Sheriff Douglas Kinloch deferred sentence until March to give Stedman a chance to repay the cash.

GASH was founded in 2001 to fight the corner of grandparents who have been denied access to their grandchildren and to act as a mediator in family disputes.

And the charity’s founder, and chairwoman, Roz Peters, hit out at Stedman and said he nearly brought the Bathgate-based charity to an end.

Roz said: “We are a small charity and don’t get a lot of donations and this could have closed us.

“We don’t need a lot of money to keep going but sometimes we need to pay for people to go and support grandparents in court cases for access to their grandchildren across the country and this money is essential for such cases.

“He was our treasurer from 2003 and he would always give us figures about what was in the bank account and it seemed fine to us.

“It was only after OSCR contacted us and we checked the bank statements that we saw this money hadn’t been banked.

“He also told OSCR the charity had been wound up and closed so we are keen to let everyone know we are still on the go.

“He has robbed us, and the people of West Lothian, as it was them who gave us this money as donations.

“Most of the committee members are pensioners and this has hit us hard. I think he has let everyone down.

“I just want to make sure he pays for what he has done.

“We are going to have to move on but we will not hear if we will get compensation until March.

“We’re having to think of ways to fund raise to rebuild our funds. But we are not giving up as that would be really letting him win.

“We are looking at changing the constitution to make sure this never happens again.

“This has had a big effect on us all but hopefully we can come back stronger from it and people will continue to support the good work we do.”