Age Concern boss accused of £725k theft
A CHIEF executive at Age Concern stole £725,000 from the charity’s funds to boost his £72,000 a year salary, a court heard yesterday.
John Briers is alleged to have paid 60 charity cheques into his bank account, awarded himself 12 unauthorised bonuses and 19 additional pension contributions.
The 57-year-old denies fraud from January 2007 to August 2015 when he was the chief executive officer at Age Concern South Tyneside based in South Shields.
A jury at Newcastle Crown Court was told Briers was suspended from his job when a finance manager noticed a document for one of the payments he had made was littered with mistakes.
Investigators later found during a search of Briers’ office templates of blank invoices for firms the charity had worked.
Anthony Dunne, prosecuting, told the court: “The defendant is charge with three offences of fraud by abuse of position.
“The case against him is he dishonestly used that position to fraudulently pay to himself large amounts of Age Concern’s money.
“He made most of those payments simply by writing out cheques to himself.
“He then covered his tracks by pretending that those fraudulent payments were either payments to companies who had supplied goods and services to Age Concern or bonus payments approved by the charity’s board of trustees or special payments, also agreed by the board, or a sub-committee of the board.
“The defendant created false documents to explain those fraudulent payments.”
Mistakes
Mr Dunne said Briers was caught out because one of the documents he created “contained obvious mistakes” leading to the finance manager to raise the alarm. It was then discovered that £725,000 had vanished from the charity’s accounts.
The court heard the money was taken from the two parts of the organisation, one being the charity, where he was chief executive, and the other was the trading company, of which he was employed as secretary.
It is alleged Briers pocketed £433,236 through the writing of fraudulent cheques, paid himself £105,560 in bonuses, and that he used £169,703 of the charity’s cash to top-up his pension.
Mr Dunne told the court Briers used fake invoices and fraudulent minutes of board meetings to cover his tracks. When he was arrested Briers, of Gateshead, made no comment during the police interview. He later claimed payments were diverted to his account so he could pay suppliers in cash. The trial continues.