Funds of a charity which provides financial help to medical students and doctors have been frozen amid an ongoing investigation by Scotland's charity regulator.
The move comes after it emerged last month that prosecutors were seeking to recover more than £1.5 million from an architect who stole more than £350,000 from the Dr Robert Malcolm Trust.
Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard last month that Ian Brash, 66 had been a trustee of the charity for more than 15 years before he began pocketing money from the organisation's bank account.
The court heard the pensioner used the cash to buy himself an Alfa Romeo and two new Land Rovers and gave his children tens of thousands of pounds for deposits for buy to let properties.
Ian Brash
He also bought a wind turbine and paid off large vet bills.
The Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has now issued a direction under section 31(7) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 to trust's bank directing it not to make any payments from the charity’s account without OSCR’s prior consent.
READ MORE: NHS Tayside 'did not break rules' with use of charity funds - but tighter governance needed
The OSCR said it has appointed Emma Porter of Aver Chartered Accountants as a Judicial Factor to take over the administration of the charity's finances following a petition to the Court of Session.
The OSCR initially opened an inquiry into the charity in 2012, after receiving information alleging a failure in governance processes leading to the charity’s assets "being put at considerable risk".
"Our inquiries into this complex case indicated there had been criminal conduct, so in line with our published policies we made a report to the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service [COPFS]," said an OSCR spokesman.
"Since then we have worked with the [Crown Office] and Police Scotland to support the prosecution of Ian Brash, one of the charity trustees, who pled guilty on May 14 to embezzling sums totalling £358,832 from the charity’s wholly owned trading subsidiary Robert Malcolm Investments Limited. Final sentence is awaited."
The regulator said Mr Brash that under Section 69 of the 2005 Act an individual is disqualified from being a charity trustee if they have been convicted of an offence of dishonesty.
It said that Mr Brash is therefore disqualified from being a charity trustee.
According to the charity regulator, the 20-year-old charity has defaulted in its requirement to provide information on its finances within the 75-days grace for overdue details. The last accounts received and checked by the OSCR was for 2010.
Brash pleaded guilty to embezzling £358,832 from the charity between August 12 2010 and September 10 2014 from the charity before Sheriff Frank Crowe in August 2018.
Sheriff Crowe heard that Brash is trying to sell his 14th century Fa'side Castle, near Tranent, East Lothian, to raise funds to pay back the stolen cash.
Agents marketing the property have been seeking offers of over £1.9m.
It emerged in court in May that Crown lawyers were seeking £1,590,512.69 from Brash using proceeds of crime legislation.
During proceedings at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last year, Sheriff Crowe heard how the charity was set up in 1987 by one of Brash's relatives, a Janie Millar, who had inherited around £1 million from her uncle Robert Malcolm's estate.
Miss Millar made grants of between £250 and £1,000 to 10 to 15 applicants to the charity each year.
READ MORE: NHS Tayside 'did not break rules' with use of charity funds - but tighter governance needed
She asked Brash to become a trustee in the late 1980s. When Miss Millar died in 2002, Brash became the sole trustee. Brash's children later became trustees.
The court heard how the charity bought a property in Windermere, Cumbria for £172,018 in 1995 and after Brash had taken sole control of the charity's finances, the house was sold for £500,000.
He transferred most of the cash into the trading company account before moving large sums into a personal share dealing account.
The money was used to buy shares with the profits transferred into his own bank account.
However, the police became aware of Brash's activities and gathered enough evidence to show that he was carrying out a scam against the charity.
He told detectives that the charity cash had became "mixed up" with his own money.
But he later admitted his guilt.
Brash's advocate Mark Stewart QC said that his client wanted to repay the money that he had taken.
He said that Mr Brash still had to sell his castle but had a "number of viewers" looking at the property.
Mr Stewart said: "Mr Brash is still anxious about the matter. He is willing to repay the sum back to the charity to ensure it returns to back to the way things used to be."
Mr Stewart also said that his client may have difficulties repaying the sum back to the charity in the light of the proceeds of crime action.
He said this was because some of the money that could be repaid would have to be spent on instructing accountants to act in the proceeds of crime action.
Brash is due to be sentenced on July 15 2019.
The charity has been approached for comment.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel