Hospital secretary’s overtime hours fiddle

A FORMER Royal Oldham Hospital theatre secretary who falsely claimed £1,084 in overtime has been sentenced to community service.

Leanne Forbes (29), of Palm Grove, Chadderton, pleaded guilty at Oldham Magistrates’ Court last month to four counts of dishonestly falsifying documents for accounting purposes.

But she will only serve 120 hours of her 180-hour sentence because of her early guilty plea.

The incidents, including one occasion when she was off ill, happened during March, April, June and September last year.

Forbes, who had worked for the Pennine Acute Trust since January, 2005, had been employed to work 37-hours a week with no overtime.

But suspicions arose last December and investigations revealed Forbes had claimed extra hours on several occasions.

Forbes, who no longer works for the trust, has since paid back £34.05 of the total received.

Thomas McCabe, defending, said his client had only been summonsed in August and suffered from stress, glandular fever and alopecia as a result.

He said previous stories on the matter had caused her 10-year-old son to be bullied, and suggested the hours of community service be reduced as the matter had gone on long enough.

He said: “This lady has never troubled the court before. There is a low risk of this lady ever coming back again.”

However, John Mellor, chairman of the bench, said: “This is a very serious matter, deception of this nature.

“It’s a breach of trust and public money and I’m sure you are only too aware of this.”

Mr Mellor said Forbes had some mitigating factors such as her early guilty plea and previous good character.

He added that she would now have to repay the outstanding £1,084 to the court rather than her previous employer.