£500,000 charity fraudster jailed

JAILED . . . Lesley Pickens

A cash-strapped finance manager from Lees who stole more than £500,000 from the charity where she worked, has been jailed for more than three years.

Lesley Pickens (59), stole the cash over a period of 10 years while she was working in the accounts department for the youth charity, where she had been employed for 20 years.

The offences came to light when Pickens took compassionate leave from work following the death of her husband in April, 2008, and it emerged that numerous transactions had been made to her personal account over the past year totalling more than £60,000.

Staff at Rathbone, a national charity which organises training services for young people, had grown suspicious months earlier.

Pickens, of Knowls Lane, was sentenced to three years and four months in jail at Manchester Crown Court after pleading guilty to 25. A further 112 offences were also taken into consideration.

The court was told that Pickens, who claimed to have been in £40,000 of debt when she was arrested, had a previous conviction for a similar offence.

During the last 10 years of her employment, Pickens began transferring money from the charity to a personal bank account on an almost monthly basis totalling £479.133.81

When Pickens was off work on compassionate leave following the death of her husband, it emerged that 19 transactions from November, 2006, averaging just over £5,000 were made to her personal account.

Pickens admitted all of her offences as soon as she was arrested.

Sentencing, Judge Michael Henshall said, “You used it for it for day to day expenses to make your life more comfortable.

“I am not saying that you used it on luxury goods.”

PC Jo Shaw, who first went to Pickens’s house to arrest her, said, “This was a monumental abuse of trust.

“The excuse of financial problems simply does not wash.”