A woman who misappropriated approximately £360,000 from the British Red Cross has been sentenced to more than two years in prison. Mary Booth, who is a payroll manager for the charity, abused her official position in the charity where she had worked for over 30 years.
Ms. Booth pretended she was making payments to employees and international delegates, while in fact she was transmitting the money from the Red Cross charity assets to her own bank accounts. As the 56-year-old woman herself revealed to the Paisley Sheriff Court, she had decided to embezzle the money in order to pay debts accumulated as a result of her gambling addiction.
It became clear at the hearing that the massive money transfers were uncovered over a payroll systems audit carried out at the charity in March 2016. The payroll manager confessed her guilt and admitted that she had stolen a total of £359,551 in the period from November 2008 to August 2015.
The procurator fiscal for North Strathclyde, Laura Mundell, commented on the actions of Ms. Booth, saying that the latter had taken advantage of being “in a position of trust and responsibility” to transfer a massive amount of money for her own gain over a number of years. The procurator said that such criminal activity was taken very seriously and would not stop at prosecution.
The Crown Office, on the other hand, has revealed that it would make an attempt to recover any profits through proceeds of crime legislation. Ms. Mundell added that they would monitor for the profits accumulated through criminal conduct would be confiscated from anyone who had committed a crime.
Gambling-related behaviour and addictions has been a subject of public health and policy interest. The matter, however, has lately become a sensitive one due to the growing addictions among UK players. The highly-addictive nature of some types of gambling has provoked competent authorities, local charities and responsible gambling trusts to raise a red flag about the possible negative effects from gambling.
The UK Gambling Commission, which is currently the governmental body responsible for monitoring and control of all gambling operations across the UK, regularly collects data on gambling both in terms of information about the customers and their preferred method and frequency to gamble.
According to recent statistics revealed by the UKGC, almost half of the individuals who took part in the survey, have gambled over the past four weeks, with the number of men being a little larger than the number of women. About 17% of the survey participants have gambled on the Internet over the past four weeks.
As far as online gambling behaviour of local players until the end of 2016, most online players preferred to gamble at home, with the number of players using mobile and tablet devices rising. At the time when the survey was conducted, Wales was reported as the region with the largest number of problem gamblers, with 1.1% of people aged over 16 identifying themselves as problem gamblers in 2015. On the other hand, in 2015 0.7% of people aged 16+ in Scotland admitted they had a gambling addiction. In comparison, back in 2012, 0.5% of the individuals in England shared they suffered from problem gambling behaviour.
As mentioned above, gambling addictions have become more serious lately, so the UK Government has been focused on providing local players with a safer gambling environment and on supporting various initiatives aimed at problem gamblers in the region.
- Author
Daniel Williams
