Charity boss gets 5yrs for €720k fraud
Simon Price A CHARITY boss who stole over €1million in donations with his partner was jailed for five years.
Gambling addict Simon Price, 53, took cash left to Birmingham Dogs Home while chief executive.
Suspicions were raised after his €85,000 wedding to the home’s commercial manager Alayna Warner.
Their four-year spree included taking proceeds from a €450,000 bungalow bequeathed to the charity.
At Birmingham crown court Price, of Solihull, West Mids, admitted fraud totalling €720,000. Judge Patrick Thomas said: “You must have weakened public trust in the charity.”
Pregnant Warner, 39, of Sutton Coldfield, now split from Price, admitted fraud totalling €286,000 and got two years’ jail, suspended. THE daughter of TV host Richard Keys has been ordered by a court not to contact his alleged ex-lover. The bail condition was made after actress Jemma Keys denied a charge involving abusive text messages.
The former Hollyoaks soap star, 32, will stand trial accused of harassing Lucie Rose.
The 28-year-old lawyer is claimed to have had a fling last year with
Richard, 60, after he divorced his wife Julia.
He has always denied the affair.
Ms Keys appeared at
Thames magistrates’ court in East London yesterday, charged with harassment without violence between
October and
December.
The offence carries a fine or maximum sixmonth jail term.
Peter Lush, chairman of the bench, told her: “You are on conditional bail, which is not to contact Lucie Rose. That means no texts, no telling friends to contact, no emails, no phone calls. “If by chance you see her in the street, you walk away.” Her father, who parted company with Sky Sports in disgrace in 2011 after making sexist comments about a female referee, was not at the hearing.
The charge alleges Ms Keys “pursued a course which amounted to the harassment of Lucie, a person known to you, and which you knew or ought to have known amounted to harassment”. According to the indictment, she “sent a number of threatening and abusive text messages” to her former friend.
Ms Keys, from Ascot, Berks, entered a plea of not guilty to the charge.
The case was sent for trial at Stratford magistrates’ court in March.
Jonathan Black, defending, said: “There’s a complex background, complex issues.”
Ms Keys admits sending the text messages but claims that she was mentally ill at the time, the court heard.
Her father reportedly spent two nights with Ms Rose in January though he denies this happened.
He and former Sky co-presenter Andy Gray now work for Qatari-based bein Sports channel.