Vicar Who Went On Run During Trial Is Jailed

A vicar who went on the run just before he was convicted of stealing at least £16,500 from bereaved families and engaged couples has been jailed for two years and eight months.

Reynold Reynolds, 50, fled during lunch time on Thursday as the jury retired to deliberate, and travelled to Germany.

He was then convicted of stealing the money that had been handed over to All Saints Church in Darton, Barnsley, for weddings, funerals and churchyard memorials, instead of paying the money to the diocese or parochial church council.

His disappearance sparked a Europe-wide search and calls by senior clergy for him to return. He handed himself in to South Yorkshire Police on Monday.

Sheffield Crown Court heard on Tuesday that he fled to Dusseldorf.

Alasdair Campbell, defending, told the court his client travelled to Manchester Airport and then booked a flight to the German city, where he stayed with a friend.

That friend then drove him back to his home in Farnham, Surrey, before Reynolds met with police in Sheffield.

Mr Campbell said: "He told me that he was not, in fact, fleeing from the process but he was fleeing from what, personally, he was feeling."

Prosecutors said the appalling state of Reynolds' book-keeping meant the amount he took could only be estimated at more than £24,000.

Judge Julian Goose decided that Reynolds would be sentenced on the basis he took at least £16,500.

He said: "You were quite obviously in a position of a high degree of trust, not just by the church and the Diocesan Board of Finance but also by the parishioners, the wardens and the treasurer who worked closely with you.

"You community, who allowed you into their home and their lives, have had their trust broken by what you did."

The court heard that, prior to being priest-in-charge at Dalton, Reynolds was a curate in Exeter and a minor canon at St Paul's Cathedral in London.

He left Darton in 2013 to be a priest-in-charge in Farnham.

Reynolds was jailed for 30 months for theft and Judge Goose added a further two months for breaching his bail when he went on the run.

Caroline Tubb, senior crown prosecutor from CPS Yorkshire and Humberside, said: "It is hard to imagine a more deplorable and flagrant breach of trust than a vicar stealing money from his own parishioners.

"The qualities one would most associate with his position - honesty, trust and integrity - have been completely abandoned in an attempt to fund his lifestyle."