Charity worker faked terminal cancer to avoid facing trial over a callous theft that left firm close to collapse
Fiona Barnes, 54, pleads guilty to perverting the course of justice as well as theft of £24,813, from charity that cared for disabled people
A CHARITY worker faked terminal cancer to avoid facing trial over a callous theft that left the firm close to collapse.
Fiona Barnes gave Preston Crown Court bogus documents that stated she was receiving palliative care in hospital.
But the 54-year-old has now pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice as well as admitting the theft of £24,813 from the Space Centre charity.
Barnes, 54, of Bridgend, Dunblane, Perthshire, entered her pleas before Preston Crown Court after a four-year ordeal for the charity, which helps disabled people across Lancashire.
In September 2012. the charity was horrified to discover it was £500,000 in debt, and had no funds to pay builders for work on a project they were close to finishing.
Bogus paperwork about nonexistent grants had been produced to mask the fact Barnes had stolen £24,700.
“Therefore, the trustees and staff at Space thought she was doing an amazing job and totally believed her when she produced letters purporting to be from Trust funders to confirm that there was an additional £800,000 pledged to pay for the building conversion and specialist equipment for new sensory facilities.”
But 200 miles away, Barnes was spinning an intricate web of deception, hiding the theft of tens of thousands of pounds by forging convincing documents to make it look like she had secured additional funding – which never existed.
She left in July 2012 and within three months the horrified charity discovered the grant cash was a fiction. Alison adds: “It still makes me feel sick when I talk about it. She’s an accomplished con artist.
“We went through 12 trusts trying to find the money and realised we could not pay the builders, two weeks before they were due to complete the job.
“That was one of the blackest days of my life.
“Just two months before that day, in June 2012, we had attended her leaving do. I stood up and gave a lovely speech, and she was given vouchers. She thrived on sympathy and attention. She sat there and accepted them, knowing less than two months later we would be virtually bankrupt.
“At this time we did not understand why she had fabricated that the grants were forthcoming as there did not seem to be a motive for her to do this.
“We later discovered that she had in fact stolen a large sum of money by forging invoices and cheque signatures and the grant applications were the cover she needed to do this.
“It was in effect the forged grant offers that so nearly led Space to closure, as we had commissioned necessary work on the strength of those pledges.
“The contracts were nearing completion so we were left unable to pay the builders or sensory specialist companies for their work.”
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