Crown prosecutor stole to pay off his son’s student debt

♦ A crown prosecutor who claimed more than £5,000 in bogus expenses to help pay off his son’s crippling university debt has been jailed for six months.

Eoin Maccarthy, 57, made 62 false claims for mileage and travel expenses over a six-month period from the CPS. He was based in Exeter with the rape and sexual offences team, dealing with cases from Devon and Cornwall, Gloucestershire and Avon and Somerset police forces.

Magistrates in Swindon, Wiltshire, heard he falsely claimed £5,780.50 – all of which he was able to self-authorise due to his position – when it should have been under £500.

The court heard the lawyer had lost his job, would inevitably be struck off and his marriage had collapsed following his “idiotic” act.

Chris Albin, mitigating, said: “He comes to court knowing that everything he has worked so hard for in his life has gone… It got to the point where he took an idiotic route. He was trying to help his son but the way he did it was completely the wrong thing to do.”