Club thief is spared prison

LET-OFF . . . Tim Kinder outside court after the hearing

Rugby treasurer walks free

A bank manager who stole thousands of pounds from a rugby club to pay off spiralling personal debts walked free from court on Friday.

Tim Kinder, of Sunfield Avenue, Oldham, stole money while treasurer at Waterhead Rugby League Club after sinking under mounting credit card bills.

Kinder (50) had handled the finances at the club from 2003 until 2007 because of his financial background as manager of the Oldham branch of high street bank HSBC. But suspicions arose in August, 2007. First a brewery, then a travel company complained they were owed thousands of pounds in unpaid invoices after cheques had bounced.

Kinder was arrested in October that year and told police he had “nine or 10” credit cards with debts of £85,000 on them.

He told officers he left his job at the bank in June, 2006, because of stress and had started his own courier company.

But with mounting credit card debts, he began forging signatures to cash cheques and created false invoices from his courier firm to the rugby club.

He also admitted setting up a “ghost company” in March, 2005, in order to secure a loan for the rugby club from HSBC — which would not authorise loans to sports clubs.

The money was used to pay off bills run up by the club.

Kinder was sentenced to nine months imprisonment, suspended for two years, at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court on Friday.

He was also handed a six-month curfew and ordered to complete 300 hours of unpaid work for what a judge described as his “erratic and dishonest behaviour”.

The court heard that HSBC was owed £67,389 from outstanding loan payments and other debts on the club’s accounts.

Kinder admitted using £13,182 of the club’s funds to pay off credit card debts, created false invoices worth £5,500 and stole £6,907 of cash.

Addressing Kinder, Judge Bernard Lever said: “You appreciate the bank has lost £67,389 as a result of your fraudulent behaviour.

“People get stressed, people make bad decisions. That is an explanation, not an excuse.

“You robbed Peter to pay Paul. The whole thing snowballed out of control.”

Kinder had pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to one count of obtaining money transfer by deception, theft, forging a cheque and two counts of fraud by abuse of position.

Mark Fireman, defending Kinder, told the court: “This was a desperate attempt to ward off the inevitable.

“He left his job suffering from a great deal of stress.

“He tried to set up his own company, his debts simply spiralled out of control to the extent that his monthly income could no longer meet those debts. He accepts that he took money that did not rightly belong to him and abused his position as the club’s treasurer in order to do so.

“The effect upon himself and his family has been extremely traumatic.”

The court was told that Kinder was due to be sentenced for fraud at Bury Magistrates’ Court after he admitted using his wife’s credit card to go on a £3,900 spending spree in January, this year, when he had started a relationship with another woman.

Mr Fireman said his wife had complained to police, but their relationship had since been reconciled.