Dunmurry Church of Ireland minister convicted of £10,000 fraud

A church minister has been convicted of a £10,000 fraud.

Standing in the dock of Craigavon Crown Court, Rev. Adrian McLaughlin looked stunned as the jury foreperson announced the 10-2 majority verdict that the 50-year-old was guilty of fraud by abuse of position.

The jury of ten men and two women had deliberated for just over six hours over the course of two days before declaring the Church of Ireland minister was guilty.

The particulars of the offence outline that while Rev. McLaughlin was occupying a position of trust at St Colman’s Parish Church in Dunmurry he “abused that position in that, without approval or authority from the treasurer or Church Vestry, you wrote a cheque for £10,000 from the church bank account” which he then made payable to himself.

The jury heard that while Rev. McLaughlin claimed the money was to reimburse him for money he spent himself on the “beautification and betterment” of St Colman’s parish, he tried to cover up his fraud by filling in the cheque stub as payable to “NI Organs Ltd”.

Describing how the minister “may well have giveth but he also certainly taketh away,” prosecuting counsel Joseph Murphy had highlighted to the jury that as rector, the defendant “knew full well” there was no treasurer in the church at the time and with “hundreds of thousands of pounds” going through a building fund to rebuild the church after it was decimated in a fire, “he thought sure who is going to notice a measly £10,000?”

On Monday the jury had found him unanimously guilty of a similar offence of fraud by abuse of position by taking a £1,000 donation from a grieving widow in that he “failed to give or declare the said donation to the treasurer of Church Vestry and made the cheque payable to yourself personally”.

The minister was however found unanimously not guilty of four further fraud offences relating to other donations, funeral collections and money obtained through a weekly Slimming World class.

Following the jury’s verdict Judge Patrick Lynch KC thanked them for their “deep consideration” of the case and advised them that he would be passing sentence “at some further stage” once pre-sentence reports had been prepared.

While Rev. McLaughlin, from Church Avenue in Dunmurry, was freed on bail until 6 September, Judge Lynch warned him his release “is no indication of what the ultimate sentence of the court will be”.

During the course of the six day trial, the jury heard how Rev. McLaughlin was appointed as rector for St Colman’s Church of Ireland parish in Dunmurry in 2014 and that after the church was decimated in a fire in January 2016, “much of the governance” of the parish and its rebuild was down to the rector and the “select vestry”.

The jury also heard that as there was no treasurer in place for a few months from August 2016, cheques had to have two signatures. John Williams, who was a member of the select vestry committee, gave evidence the defendant approached him after a Sunday service and asked him to sign a £10,000 cheque but to leave the payee line blank.

According to Mr Williams, the defendant told him he needed the cheque to make sure the church did not miss out on a “great bargain” of an organ he had found but that he explained he was not 100% sure of the church’s name so leave the page line blank and he would fill it in.

Six days later, however, Rev. McLaughlin lodged that £10,000 cheque into his own account, filling in the cheque stub as paying NI Organs Ltd. The fraud was only uncovered, the jury heard, towards the end of 2018 when with the minister and his then wife going through a marriage split, concerns were raised about his conduct and the church treasurer asked the bank for a copy of the cheque.

Interviewed by police, Rev. McLaughlin initially claimed it had been agreed at a vestry meeting that he should be reimbursed for money he had spent on such things as an organ, the gardens, the garage and a Sunday school but but when it was put to him there was no such discussion recorded in the minutes, he claimed there had been an informal agreement with Mr Williams and his wife Lynn who would become church treasurer.

Giving evidence on his own behalf the minister claimed the decision had been made at a dinner party at the Williams’ house which turned into an “ad hoc vestry meeting”.

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