Fraudster who stole £360,000 from Red Cross serves just third of her sentence
A FINANCE worker jailed for 27 months after embezzling £360,000 from a charity was freed from prison after serving less than eight months.
Mary Booth, 56, was a ‘trusted and valued’ employee of the British Red Cross for 34 years before investigations showed she had stolen money that should have been used to pay staff on relief projects around the world.
She was jailed last August at Paisley Sheriff Court after admitting she paid the cash into her own bank accounts.
But she has now been freed under ‘soft-touch’ rules that allow offenders to serve only a third of their sentence before being freed on an electronic tag.
Booth’s early release emerged last week when she arrived at court for a proceeds of crime hearing through the front door rather than from custody.
She had been jailed after admitting taking £359,551.27 from the charity to fund an online gambling habit.
She committed the fraud between 2008 and 2015 while working at the charity’s London headquarters and at the Scottish HQ in Paisley, after the payroll department moved to Scotland.
The fraud came to light in February 2016, after Booth had retired, when irregularities from 2015 were discovered. At the time, Booth had a £45,000 salary.
At last week’s hearing, the court heard she had sold her £350,000 home in England to reimburse the charity.
Defence solicitor Jonathan Manson said she had been released in April on a home detention curfew. He added: ‘The house in England sold in May and I understand the proceeds are in the process of being sent to the Red Cross.
‘An agreement has been reached for the repayment of sums from her pension. I understand the Red Cross are satisfied all the sums are due to be repaid.’
Sheriff James Spy continued the case for four weeks but excused Booth’s attendance at the next hearing, saying: ‘She is better paying money to the Red Cross than paying for transport to come here.’
British Red Cross chief executive Mike Adamson said it was ‘devastated’ by the case, adding: ‘We are deeply shocked someone within the Red Cross community would betray our cause and our trust in this way. We are doing everything we can to recover the lost funds.’
‘Betrayed our cause and our trust’