General ‘cheated MoD out of £50k for school fees’
THE most senior Army officer to face a court martial in 200 years cheated taxpayers out of almost £50,000 for school fees, the hearing was told yesterday.
Major General Nick Welch, 57, is accused of fraudulently claiming the money under an allowance for service personnel posted away from home.
During a glittering military career he was awarded an OBE and was chief of staff of Nato’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.
As well as serving in Northern Ireland, Germany and Belize, he commanded British and US troops in Afghanistan.
He is the highest ranking officer to appear before a military court since 1815, when Lieutenant General Sir John Murray was found guilty of abandoning his position faced with a French advance during the Napoleonic Wars. Maj Gen Welch put his second and third child into public schools in Dorset when he became assistant chief of the General Staff in Whitehall in 2015.
Under Army rules he was entitled to claim 90 per cent of the fees on condition that he and his wife Charlotte lived at a London property provided by the Ministry of Defence, a clause known as ‘serving accompanied’.
But a court heard yesterday that Mrs Welch, 54, instead resided at the family’s £800,000 cottage near Blandford Forum, a few miles from their children’s schools. The two-star general may have to repay the fees if found guilty of defrauding the Continuity of Education Allowance scheme.
Opening the prosecution at Bulford military court in Wiltshire, Sarah Clarke QC said: ‘Very rarely were they in London, it was not being used as the family home.
‘He should not have been claiming the allowance. He had a duty to inform of any risk that his family was failing to satisfy the CEA rules.
‘The reason it never happened is because he dishonestly wanted to continue to keep the privilege of having his two children in private educa
‘A glittering military career’
tion but did not want his family to live in the home at London but instead at the family home in Blandford.’
One of Maj Gen Welch’s children boarded at the £37,000-ayear Clayesmore School and another at the £22,500-a-year Hanford School.
According to the Army, the longest his wife spent in London from December 2015 to February 2017 was five days.
Maj Gen Welch would have earned around £120,000 and Miss Clarke said that without the public funds he could not have afforded the school fees.
He is accused of swindling just over £48,000 in allowances over 15 months.
He left the Army in 2019 and is now chief operating officer at Bournemouth Arts University.
The trial continues.