Crooked finance chief told to repay £43,000 stolen from society

Over a period of five years, Karen Simms abused her position, paying cheques into her own bank account and plundering bar takings at the hall.

She was eventually found out when a £5,000 cheque was not honoured. An auditor spotted the discrepancies and she was hauled before a meeting of members at the Greengate Street branch to be confronted with the evidence.

Last July, Simms, aged 54, of Babbacombe Avenue, Baswich, Stafford, was given a 16-month prison sentence suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 250 hours unpaid community work after admitting three charges of fraud.

But in an uncontested Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Stafford Crown Court yesterday (mon) she was ordered to pay up for the whole of her wrongdoing - a total of £43,291.

Mr Darron Whitehead, prosecuting, told the court her available assets exceeded the criminal benefit figure and asked for the whole amount to be confiscated.

Miss Katie McCreath, for Simms, said some of her client's assets were tied up in property which was currently on the market and asked that she be given time to pay.

Judge Mark Eades ruled that Simms's criminal benefit was £43,291 and that it should be paid as compensation to the Oddfellows. He directed the money should be paid within six months, with 18 months in jail if she defaults.

When her dishonesty was uncovered she tried to blame it all on the innocent bar manager at the hall, it emerged at the prosecution hearing last year.

Her defence lawyer Mr Bernard Porter said Simms had worked for the Oddfellows Society for 12 years and been highly regarded by her colleagues but that her marriage had broken down and she had become an alcoholic.

The money she took was a result of her trying to balance the books whilst spending more money to fund her increasing dependence on alcohol, he claimed.

The court heard Simms took the Society's money by asking for the payee line on cheques to be left blank or altering them so they could be paid into a joint account she had with her now estranged husband.

Sentencing her last July, Judge Eades said: "You were trusted to run that branch and you exploited that position over a five-year period."

The Oddfellows Society, a not-for-profit friendly society, released a statement stressing that there was no evidence to suggest anyone else from the branch was implicated and said Simms was dismissed as soon as it was discovered something was amiss.