Cornwall fundraising director jailed
Howard Lake | 4 November 2006 | News
The director of fundraising of a Cornish charity has been jailed for 12 months after he was found guilty of stealing money from collection boxes.
Richard Taylor, who worked for the Cornwall First Air Ambulance Trust was found guilty of eight charges of theft. His mother, who is chief executive of the charity, was earlier aquitted of six counts of theft.
Taylor was caught when the owner of a petrol station in Bude and her colleague noticed that the Air Ambulance collection box always seemed to yield less than other charity boxes in the shop.
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They set a trap, counted the money in the box and after it was emptied by the trust collectors they were given a receipt for £4.88 less than the actual total. A second occasion yielded a similar result and police were informed. They checked therboxes at another shop in Bude and found further discrepancies. They then arrested Taylor.
Taylor was also ordered to pay £2,000 towards prosecution costs.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.