Act of greed cost former staff member dear

A court has ordered a former charity worker to pay compensation after stealing almost £30,000 from beneficiaries.

Margaret Burnett pleaded guilty to stealing £29,900 from five disabled residents at a Leonard Cheshire facility in Edinburgh between January 2014 and June 2016.

She avoided a prison sentence at the time but was placed on a 12-month supervision order and subjected to a restriction of liberty order.

She was also ordered to pay £3,000 in compensation to the four victims still alive. The fifth, who had cerebral palsy, has since died.

Burnett’s position gave her access to the a safe and a locked cabinet containing residents’ bank cards, five of which Burnett illegally used to make multiple withdrawals from their accounts.

Staff at the Royal Bank of Scotland discovered anomalies on one resident’s account and flagged this to the charity. The police were subsequently alerted following an internal investigation carried out by Leonard Cheshire.

Burnett was suspended and later dismissed from her role when the allegations first emerged, prior to her arrest in November 2019.

A spokesperson for Leonard Cheshire said: “Processes and procedures are in place at all Leonard Cheshire services to minimise the risk of any staff member, however senior, committing this type of crime,” they said.

“The systems we have now are designed to identify suspicious activity far sooner.”