Woman is jailed for £26,000 Stafford school fraud
A mother-of-two who fiddled more than £26,000 from three Stafford schools has been jailed for five months.
Tracy Taylor, who worked as a school bursar, wrote out cheques for herself, used a school payment card to get petrol for her car and falsely claimed overtime, Stafford Crown Court heard.
The frauds, at Stafford Sports College, The Chetwynd Centre and Sir Graham Balfour School, went on for more than six years until being spotted by a county council auditor.
Taylor, aged 41, of Lebanon Grove, Burntwood, admitted a total of seven charges of fraud.
The court heard Taylor was a senior finance officer at Stafford Sports College, before being promoted to bursar, while also carrying out part-time roles at the Chetwynd Centre and Sir Graham Balfour School, where she later became full-time bursar.
Miss Fiona Cortese, prosecuting, said a county council audit last year revealed a number of suspicious transactions involving cheques with no supporting documentation, which were reported to the head of Stafford Sports College.
A total of 66 transactions, each for £300 in cash made payable to Taylor and totalling £19,800, had been made for 'postage' between May 2008 and January 2013. Another £2,700 had been booked in as 'running costs', and a £300 cheque marked as 'cancelled' had been cashed by Taylor. She also used the college's account to get £70 worth of petrol for her private vehicle.
The Chetwynd Centre was cheated out of £500, which Taylor wrote down as 'postage'.
In November last year, Taylor left the college to become full-time bursar at Sir Graham Balfour School.
While working for the school, Taylor fraudulently claimed £2,392 in overtime payments between April 2013 and January this year and had £352 worth of petrol on the school's account in 10 illicit transactions.
Mr Paul Lamb, defending, said the catalyst for Taylor's offending was her husband being made redundant and the deaths of her sister and father.
"She was under a great deal of emotional and financial pressure," he said. "She can't fully explain why she carried out these offences - she knew she was in a position to do it. It became a habit, she wasn't living an extravagant lifestyle."
