Vicar ‘betrays’ congregation

Father Vaughan Leonard

Clergyman stole £14,000 from church
WORSHIPPERS have spoken of their betrayal by a trusted vicar who has admitting stealing more than £14,000 from an Oldham church.

Despite being plunged into financial difficulties by Vaughan Leonard’s thieving spree, St Thomas’s Church, Leesfield, is determined to keep going.

The 59-year-old began pocketing cash from funerals and weddings only one week after becoming vicar in June, 2006.

The disgraced clergyman continued stealing for more than three years before he left the parish in 2009 when the Thomas Street church asked for outstanding fees he should have passed on.

Leonard, now of Oldham Road, Middleton, admitted he didn’t have the money and the police were called.

He pleaded guilty at Oldham Magistrates’ Court to two charges of theft from the Church of England Diocese of Manchester.

He took £7,484 of funeral fees between June, 2006, and August, 2009, and £6,859 paid to him for reading marriage banns between August, 2006, and September, 2009.

The money should have gone into church funds.

Saddleworth West and Lees councillor Val Sedgwick, a member of the congregation and a former church warden, said: “I feel totally betrayed. How low can you get to steal money from a funeral. You don’t expect that of a vicar. I feel very bitter. I haven’t found it in my heart yet to forgive.

“At the minute we are struggling and trying to keep the church going but I think we are doing a good job. There are projects we want to do but are short of money. It’s been horrendous.

“We are determined to keep the church going and try and put this behind us. There are some wonderful people who go to St Thomas’s and we all do our bit.

“We have not got a vicar to replace him yet. We have different clergy come in each week to support us and they have been wonderful.”

Leonard has been stripped of his licence to work as a vicar and will be sentenced at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court on April 5. It’s believed he is now a bus driver.

A spokesman for the diocese said: “We expect our clergy to be honest in their dealings with money and it is highly unusual for this trust to be broken. Mr Leonard is now prohibited from exercising any duties as a vicar.”

Leonard, who is married with four children, was a naval officer with the Royal Navy, serving in the Falklands conflict aboard HMS Hermes. He was also a flight control instructor with the Royal Air Force of Oman.

He has previously served as a curate at Poole in Dorset and as team vicar at Crawley, West Sussex.

Originally from Manchester, he told the Chronicle on his appointment at Leesfield that he felt as if he was coming home.