Bursar who stole £100,000 from school funds is jailed

ABURSAR who stole £100,000 from her primary school’s accounts while splurging thousands on holidays and electronic goods has been jailed.

Susan Ashworth, 58, was the ‘trusted face’ of Baxenden St John’s CE Primary and had worked there for more than 20 years.

Forging the headteacher’s signature on cheques, she diverted school money to her own accounts between January 2011 and August 2016, Preston Crown Court was told.

The scale of the theft deprived hundreds of children of teaching resources and trips out over a period of years, the court heard.

Prosecutor Jane Dagnall said: “Mrs Ashworth systematically misled and manipulated the financial picture for the headteacher.”

The court heard that during the period of the thefts, Ashworth had spent £33,000 on holidays, spent £30,000 on her sons, repaid £17,000 in mortgage payments and spent £10,505 on mobile phones and televisions.

Her crimes were uncovered in 2017 when a Lancashire County Council auditor found discrepancies in school accounts.

Ashworth pleaded guilty last December to one count of theft and another of conversion of criminal property.

Mrs Dagnall read out a victim statement from the school’s headteacher Christina Regan.

She said all the pupils, staff and parents of the school during that period had been victims of the crime.

Mrs Regan said: “To the tight knit community of Baxenden where she worked front of house at St John’s she was the trusted face of the school.

She was responsible for the finances of our school.

“To falsify records and do this is beyond comprehension.”

She added that the lack of money in the school fund meant that over the years parents had been asked to finance school trips.

The theft had also affected the school’s ability to get extra teaching resources and items such as laptops and iPads for the pupils.

Tim Storrie, defending, said it was significant to note that more than £32,000 had been repaid.

He said: “She could not believe it of herself.”

Judge Beverley Lunt jailed Ashworth, of Dorset Drive, Clitheroe, for two years and five months.

A Proceeds of Crime hearing has been scheduled in an attempt to recover the remainder of the stolen money for the education authority.