| Taxi Driver Online http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/ |
|
| Labour aide swindles taxpayers money from Leeds council. http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6156 |
Page 1 of 1 |
| Author: | JD [ Thu May 17, 2007 2:34 am ] |
| Post subject: | Labour aide swindles taxpayers money from Leeds council. |
Yorkshire Post May 12, 2007 Cheating aide may face jail for thefts A LABOUR aide is facing jail after swindling taxpayers' money through his job with Leeds Council to buy a holiday in Spain. Andrew Fisher, 39, a senior manager, admitted a string of theft and deception charges including stealing cash meant for the Lord Mayor's charity in Leeds and spending £1,100 on his Spanish jaunt. Fisher resigned from his £35,000-a-year job as head of a team of 11 in the Labour group's offices just days before police launched an investigation. Fisher's job was to support Labour councillors in their work, carry out research and case work on their behalf and deal with media inquiries, among other things. At Leeds Magistrates' Court, Fisher, of Anderson Avenue, Leeds, pleaded guilty to a total of 12 charges. He denied six further charges of deception, which were dropped by the prosecution. Fisher will be sentenced by a judge at Leeds Crown Court next month. Melanie Ibbotson, prosecuting, said that in December 2005 Fisher stole £50 meant for the Lord Mayor's charity. He went on to forge stationery receipts before using the city council's account with Co-op Travel to book a trip to Spain. He later used the same method to book himself into a £185-a-night hotel in Ripon as well as using the council account to pay for a number of personal taxi fares. Fisher went on to pocket £300 given to him for new cameras which were never bought. He then stole council-owned cameras and sold them on to colleagues. Fisher had worked for the council for six years before resigning when the offences came to light in October last year. Mitigating, Graham Page said his client began stealing after falling into debt. He said: "He always had the intention of repaying it but the longer time went on the worse his debt position got. He owed around £5,000. "He knew that he was living on borrowed time and he had got himself into a hole. He's in receipt of benefits and finding employment in due course will be difficult for him because of his conviction." The council's chief democratic services officer, Nick de la Taste, said afterwards they had tightened procedures in a number of areas as a result of the case. _________________________ |
|
| Author: | Sussex [ Fri May 18, 2007 8:26 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
So are these the types of folks the GMB support? |
|
| Page 1 of 1 | All times are UTC [ DST ] |
| Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group http://www.phpbb.com/ |
|