A FINANCE worker who embezzled more than £350,000 from the British Red Cross under the guise of sending money to former delegates and staff was yesterday jailed.
Mary Booth was “a trusted and valued” British Red Cross employee for 34 years and worked at the charity’s London headquarters before their payroll department moved to Renfrewshire. She earned £45,000-per-year and retired with a full pension and lump sum from the British Red Cross offices in Smithhills Street, Paisley.
But the seemingly trustworthy 56-year-old siphoned off £359,551.27 from the charity’s accounts, which she paid into her own bank accounts.
She said she scammed the charity, which helps needy souls across the world, to fund her online gambling habit after splitting from her husband.
Booth was jailed for 27 months at Paisley Sheriff Court yesterday for embezzled £359,551.27 between November 1, 2008, and August 31, 2015, at the British Red Cross’ Paisley office and their London premises in Moorfields.
She pleaded guilty to the seven-year scam last month.
Booth had access to the charity’s bank accounts and BACS payment systems, allowing her to send money to herself.
In February 2016, after Booth had retired, Deborah McBean, the charity’s head of control and compliance, noticed irregularities in payments from 2015. An investigation was launched, the British Red Cross had the bank accounts the money had been paid in to frozen, prompting Booth to contact them.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article