No payback for ex-RL treasurer

Thief will not have to repay £67,000 debt

A bank manager who stole thousands of pounds from a rugby club to pay off spiralling personal debts will not have to pay back any money – because he’s broke.

Tim Kinder (50), stole money while treasurer at Waterhead Rugby League club in Oldham after ‘sinking’ under mounting credit card bills.

Kinder had handled the finances at the Oldham club from 2003 until 2007 because of his financial background as manager of the HSBC branch in the town.

But suspicions arose in August, 2007 when a brewery and travel company both complained they were owed thousands of pounds in unpaid invoices after cheques had bounced because of “insufficient funds” in the rugby club bank accounts.

Kinder, of Sunfield Avenue, Oldham, was arrested in October, 2007 and told police he had nine or ten 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 on cheques to cash, and creating 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 who would not authorise loans to sports clubs. The money was used to pay off bills run up by the club.

Earlier this year Kinder was sentenced at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court to a total of nine months imprisonment suspended for two years, a six-month curfew and ordered to complete 300 hours unpaid work for what a judge described as his “erratic and dishonest behaviour”.

He was hauled back into court for a profits of crime hearing where he was told he owed £67,922.24. But he was told he did not have to pay any money back because of his financial circumstances.

Kinder told the court: ‘’I am really sorry about all this – I shouldn’t be here and it won’t happen again.’’

He had earlier told police his plan was to borrow some money to pay the club back before he was found out.

The court heard that HSBC were owed £67,389.11 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.

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.