Thieving vicar gets time to repent — in prison

Vaughan Leonard

A TRUSTED vicar who stole £10,000 from an Oldham church has been jailed for 10 months.

Vaughan Leonard (60) began pocketing cash from funerals and weddings only a week after becoming vicar of St Thomas Leesfield Church, on Thomas Street, Lees, in June, 2006.

At Manchester Crown Court on Friday, Judge Peter Lakin dismissed his claims that he used the bulk of the cash to buy food and clothing for three struggling families.

The judge also said he believed that a “spiritual journal” which Leonard claimed detailed his charitable donations, had been forged by the vicar to cover his tracks.

The disgraced clergyman, now of Oldham Road, Middleton, continued stealing for more than three years before he left the parish in 2009 when the church asked for outstanding fees he should have passed on.

He had previously pleaded guilty at Oldham Magistrates Court to two charges of theft totalling £9,674.

Originally from Manchester, Leonard previously served as a curate at Poole in Dorset and as team vicar at Crawley, West Sussex.

He told the Chronicle on his appointment at Leesfield that he felt as if he was coming home. But during the court case he described his parishioners as a “self-satisfied bunch”.

Benjamin Knight, defending, said Leonard had a crisis of faith after moving from Dorset to Oldham, and had been suffering from depression and alcoholism which had led to the breakdown of his marriage.

Father-of-four Leonard has been stripped of his licence to work as a vicar. It is believed he is now a bus driver.