Hertfordshire church treasurer stole collection money

Ms Blake stole £24,000 from Radwell church, near Letchworth Garden City, but has since paid the money back

A church treasurer has been jailed for stealing £24,000 from the parish and a further £125,500 from her employer.

Alison Blake, 52, was sole signatory at Radwell church in Hertfordshire and stole collection money.

Blake, who lives in Suffolk, also paid in 147 fraudulent cheques from Kier Fleet Services, where she worked.

St Albans Crown Court heard she used the money for "retail therapy" to counter her depression. She was jailed for 28 months.

Blake was sole signatory for the parochial church council (PCC) account which she took over in 2013.

The court heard she opened an internet banking account for the church, which only had 10 regular worshipers.

It normally collected around £3,500 a year, but from February 2018 Blake had paid in 147 fraudulent cheques from Hertfordshire based Kier, where she worked as a assistant finance manager.

The amounts varied from £200 to £2,000.

She transferred money to her account and spent it on shopping sites such as Not On The High Street, Etsy, QVC, Amazon and Estee Lauder.

The court heard she moved the money into her own account and used it as "retail therapy" to counter her depression and the perimenopause.

'Bullying at work'

Prosecutors said Blake had resisted attempts to have a second signatory on the church account and had lied to the other members of the PCC when persuading them to switch the account from Lloyds Bank to NatWest, claiming that Lloyds was charging them for the account.

Ms Blake resigned from the PCC in 2019, but the court heard she made repeated excuses to the new treasurer, preventing him from gaining access to the account.

He only received a statement in October 2021 after involving the banking ombudsman.

Ms Blake, from Top Green, in Denston near Newmarket, appeared for sentence having pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud by abuse of position.

Defending counsel Natalie Turner said: "Ms Blake had paid back the church and offered to repay Kier.

"She had previously been in two abusive relationships and had turned to retail therapy as a coping mechanism.

"She had been going through the perimenopause and had felt under huge pressure, having experienced bullying at work."

Ms Blake has since sent letters of apology to the church, Kier and the court.

Jailing her, recorder Lee Harris said: "There was a serious abuse of position by you over a lengthy period of time."