Nottinghamshire charity treasurer gambled away £6,500 raised for dying patients

A Nottinghamshire charity treasurer gambled away £6,500 that had been raised for terminally ill patients. Julie Scotney funnelled three years' worth of hospice donations into her own account before spending it on gambling websites.

The 64-year-old fraudster pocketed cash intended for the Edwinstowe Hospice Support Group, while repeatedly lying to her colleagues. Nearly £6,500 went missing under Scotney’s watch – money that had been raised to support the John Eastwood Hospice in Sutton-in-Ashfield.

Most of the funds came from the charity’s coffee mornings, organised four times a year, to help the hospice provide care for people with life-limiting conditions. Sentencing Scotney at Nottingham Crown Court on Tuesday, November 12, recorder Balraj Bhatia KC said the fraud was "an abuse of trust".

"This money belonged to this very worthy charity, not to you, but you simply gambled it away," he said. “To make matters worse, when things were discovered, you told lie after lie, showing no respect for anyone involved with the charity, who were trying to make sure the money collected went to the hospice."

The frauds took place between February 2020 and January 2022, with the discrepancies initially going undiscovered. Unbeknownst to other charity board members, funds were not transferred to the group's bank account, with Scotney even creating a fake bank statement to try and cover her tracks.

When charity members became suspicious and chased her for the money, the treasurer ignored their emails, phone calls and home visits. Scotney eventually owned up to investing the money through her business account but promised that she would transfer the missing funds back within two weeks.

When this didn’t happen, Scotney delayed further before lying again to the charity chair on December 24, 2021, saying the money had been sent and to wish them “a peaceful Christmas”.

Nottinghamshire Police were contacted soon after when the fraudster once again tried to ignore her colleagues’ attempts to contact her. Her phone was seized and officers found examples of her accessing more than 10 different gambling sites on a "significant number of occasions".

After pleading guilty to charges of fraud by abuse of position and false accounting, Scotney, of Maythorn Grove, Edwinstowe, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years. As part of the conditions of her sentence, she must complete 15 rehabilitation activity requirement days.

Detective sergeant Marc Lancaster said: “Julie Scotney was entrusted to help ensure the money donated to this charity made its way to its intended target, but instead chose to abuse her position. She will have appreciated how much pain her actions would cause but she chose to do it anyway."