Spared jail, ‘pillar of community’ who stole church’s £34k
A CHURCH treasurer who stole more than £34,000 from parish funds escaped a jail sentence yesterday.
Paul Melloy, 41, embezzled the money over three years from donations by members of the congregation and from fundraising efforts.
But a sheriff refused to jail Melloy after being told he was a first offender and had arranged for his family to pay back the money he had stolen. Sheriff Pino di Emidio ordered Melloy to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work and tagged him on a 7pm to 7am curfew every day for the next 12 months.
He said: ‘You will be punished by a significant restriction on your personal liberty.’
Solicitor Melissa Rutherford, defending, said the father of two had started taking cash from Craigie and Moncrieffe Parish Church in Perth in an attempt to cover his family’s financial difficulties.
Melloy, who was also involved as a volunteer with a local amateur football club, started stealing almost as soon as he became church treasurer in 2013.
Miss Rutherford said: ‘He committed the offence and took the funds due to the poor state of the family finances. He saw it as a quick fix. It snowballed from there.
‘The difficulty is that nobody was looking, which allowed him to get away with it. It wasn’t particularly clever. There wasn’t a complex plan.
‘The church is a large part of his family life. His church support network has been shattered and Mr Melloy’s reputation has been destroyed by his own actions.’
She said he had used the money to pay for his children’s dance lessons and other family bills. She added: ‘It was just to get by. He’s extremely sorry and felt he was an embarrassment to his family.’
Melloy, from Perth, admitted embezzling £34,771 between April 7, 2014, and December 1, 2017. The court was told that six months after he left the treasurer’s role, another committee member was looking at the accounts when she noticed irregularities in a series of bank statements.
Fiscal depute Eilidh Robertson told the court: ‘It was evident he [Melloy] had been under-representing the church income and over-representing expenditure to make payments to his own account.
‘He admitted it had spiralled out of control, prompting him to give up his role as treasurer.
‘The church received a cheque from the accused, admitting his regret and saying his family had assisted with the funds.’
The court was told Melloy had now moved to another parish and was offering his services as a volunteer in a non-financial role.