Fraudster faces confiscation order on assetts

Efforts are being made to make sure cash stolen by a fraudster from cancer charities goes back to them - rather than Treasury coffers.

Lindsay MacCallum (pictured above right) was jailed for three years last month after she admitted defrauding cancer organisation Rainbow Valley of £85,000 as well as £9,505 from the Anthony Nolan Trust.

MacCallum worked as a fundraising manager for the Anthony Nolan Trust from 1995 to 2012 before she left to set up Rainbow Valley with her friend Angela MacVicar.

In 2005, MacVicar lost her 27-year-old daughter Johanna to leukaemia and the foundation was created in her memory.

A hearing at Falkirk Sheriff Court was told she has already paid back £25,000 to Rainbow Valley and has £175,000 in personal wealth.

In what is a complex legal scenario, sheriff Craig Harris said he is attempting to make a payback order go back to the defrauded charities when money recovered under the Proceeds of Crime Act normally goes to the treasury or central bank.

After the friends had a fall out in 2022, financial discrepancies began to be discovered at the charity.

She forged signatures of charity staff and rerouted cash from fundraising accounts for her own use between 2011 and 2021.

When confronted, MacCallum said she did it for her daughter, who was in trouble and couldn't pay her rent.

MacVicar said MacCallum initially apologised saying "I've let everybody down".

But then she said MacCallum struck a different tone. "She told me, 'Angela if you take this any further it will ruin me, and it will ruin you and it will ruin the charity,'" she said.

Sheriff Craig Harris continued the hearing for a confiscation order until 11 December.