Priest stole £50k to lavish gifts on his housekeeper
A CATHOLIC priest stole £50,000 from the church and lavished his housekeeper with gifts after he fell in love with her, a court heard yesterday.
Father John Reid bought four houses for Gillian Leddy, 55, and her two grown-up daughters as they lived ‘as a family’ in the presbytery.
The women were treated to expensive holidays, meals out and two new cars, while the 69-year-old priest bought himself wine club membership and a £1,200 cutlery set.
When he was replaced at St Cuthbert’s Church in Chesterle-Street, County Durham, his ‘dirty’ accommodation was found with large quantities of alcohol and women’s clothes lying around the bedrooms.
He even financed cafe businesses for the women and gave them ‘significant’ amounts of cash, prosecutors said.
But Reid – who appointed his housekeeper’s daughter Veronica, 30, as parish secretary so she could counter- sign cheques – told police: ‘The parish keeps me. Ultimately I’m in charge of it so I can spend it.’ Prosecutor Jane Waugh said Reid ‘ declared that he was in love with Gillian Leddy’ and that she and her daughters Veronica and Alice, 28, were the ‘family that he never had’.
After admitting fraud at Durham Crown Court he was given an 18-month jail term, suspended for two years, and made to pay back the £50,000.
Concerns were raised in 2013 by parishioners, who were worried about the way church donations were being spent.
Since Reid took up his post in 2009, spending had risen fourfold in some areas, the court heard. Over the period in question he wrote cheques worth more than £113,000 to himself – £50,000 of which he was not entitled to. His remaining spending on the Leddys came from legitimate inheritances.
Reid used church money to buy membership of The Sunday Times Wine Club, a £1,200 William Turner canteen of cutlery, and more than £80 worth of oysters and smoked salmon while on holiday in Scotland.
He was expected to live a simple and celibate life, but instead the Leddys were effectively living at the presbytery and he was supporting them financially, the court heard.
When the priest was replaced temporarily, his successor said the presbytery was ‘in a terrible condition’. The prosecutor said: ‘It was dirty and untidy with large quantities of alcohol present ... there was female clothing in the bedrooms and it was apparent that females had been staying there.’ The court heard Reid was ‘like a character from 19th century British fiction’, living a chaotic lifestyle with chickens and ducks running around his kitchen.
Last night Veronica Leddy said her mother had not lived at the presbytery, adding: ‘They were just friends.’
Reid, of Stockton- on-Tees, will pay back £50,000 – plus £5,000 to cover a financial audit – within three months.