Man defrauds Bradford City Community Foundation

Not sure if anyone noticed this, but it was reported on yesterday, which I am guessing if people on here had paid for football camps for their children they may have been unwittingly funding this persons drug habbit. Not sure how long this "new job he has" will last, but I'd certainly not look to take anyone on who stole from their employer.

Bradford City FC charity worker stole £50,000 - BBC News

Sam McDonnell volunteered with the Bradford City Community Foundation as a teenager before he became its head of communications in 2020.

Bradford Crown Court heard earlier that McDonnell, of Halifax, had access to a PayPal account used by parents to pay for their children's football camps, and diverted money to his own bank account.

McDonnell, 24, was given a suspended prison sentence after admitting the fraud, and was ordered to pay compensation to the charity, which runs football activities and coaching sessions.

Miss Barker said the total sum taken was just over £51,600 and the last transfer into McDonnell’s account had been in March 2023.

McDonnell had pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud by abuse of position at an earlier hearing and Recorder Patrick Palmer sentenced him to 21 months in jail, suspended for two years.

Recorder Palmer ordered McDonnell, who now has a new job, to pay £5,000 compensation at the rate of £1,000 a month and he must complete 300 hours of unpaid work.

So steals £51,600. End up with a suspended sentence, has to pay back £5,000 of the £51,600 and spend 300 hours unpaid work (which would be equivalent to over £150 per hour based on the £46,600 remaining after paying back £5,000. Another joke sentence.

 

One would hope his new employers are aware of his background. Fraud cases take so long to come to trial and there is very little publicity prior to them hitting trial. The first anyone knows of this is from this news story of yesterday when the fraud was taking place several years ago. It states he has a new job, whatever that new job is they are probably just finding out the real reasons he left his last one.

 

It's not really about if he can or can't pay this £5000 back, it's more from the viewpoint of a company or employer has taken this guy on, probably not being fully aware of his past because it's only come to light now. Would you want to work with, or have someone working for you who has been convicted of stealing money from a charity to fuel their drug habbit. Would you want people knowing you employ someone who has stolen money from a charity to fuel their drug habbit?

I'm not gonna feel sorry for him if he can't get work ever again, actions have concequences.

 

No typo, he won't be paying anything like the £50k back at all. It will all have been spent.

I've said earlier in this piece that people who are arrested for fraud are rarely known until they get beyond trial. There is one from Bradford a few years back, where the company accountant setup fake employees and paid himself the money. This was after he had been found guilty of fraud with his previous employer but at the time he gain this employment he hadn't yet been to trial so it was unknown. The guy was convicted of fraud and sent to jail but the sentence was such a joke he only spent 3 months in jail of which he pulled the wool over his employers eyes by saying he had to rush to Italy to see his sick dad. It was covered in all the papers.

Crooked accounts manager Riccardo Sorice stole over £650k from Pro Audio systems | Daily Mail Online

 

One would hope the minimum someone would do is check google before offering someone a job. His name due to this news would now pop right out with reference to him stealing £50k from a charity and blowing it on cocaine, that should be the red flag most people need.

However the length of time these case take to come to court and the lack of info associated with them until a conviction has been reached means that they can slip into another job unseen. I very much doubt he sat down with his new/current employer and said, thank you for this opportunity but just so you know, I've got a pending case for £50k of fraud at Bradford Crown Court coming up, so can you put me down as Flexi for late September.

 

This £50k is only £50k because that is the time it was noticed. It's what happens with most frauds, the figures are capped at when they get caught, their true intentions would carry on and on and on. Reading the story people were becoming suspicious at the numbers of people turning up against the monies coming in. It was only at the stage when the net was closing in and he went off work on "stress" (the stress of being caught no doubt) that everything was discovered. No one who is stealing wakes up one day and suddenly decides to stop, they tend to stop because the net is closing in or they are caught.