Former Mencap PA pleads guilty to fraud at Crown Court

Asra Yildiz, 32, of Hackney in east London appeared at Blackfriars Crown Court, charged with defrauding the charity of £34,000

A former personal assistant to the chief executive of the learning disability charity Mencap has pleaded guilty to a £34,000 fraud.

Asra Yildiz, 32, from Hackney, east London, pleaded guilty at Blackfriars Crown Court last month to one count of fraud by abuse of position.

Yildiz, who was employed by the charity from 2011 until her dismissal in 2014 when the allegations came to light, was the PA to Mark Goldring, who left Mencap in 2013 to become chief executive of Oxfam, and his successor, Jan Tregelles.

It is alleged that Yildiz fraudulently spent £34,768.20 using a company credit card between 18 November 2012 and 29 April 2014.

Yildiz had originally pleaded not guilty to the offence, but changed her plea at a hearing on 20 October.

Tregelles said: “Asra Yildiz had worked at Mencap for a number of years until her dismissal in April 2014. She was in a position of trust, which she repeatedly abused by falsifying expenses and other claims for personal gain. Asra let herself, her Mencap colleagues and Mencap donors down.

“As the recent fraud report produced by the Charity Commission made clear, every charity needs to be alert to insider fraud.”

Yildiz will be sentenced next week.

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Former charity treasurer pleads guilty to £200k fraud

Dial Lowestoft and Waveney says it almost had to shut down because of the crime, which was carried out over more than six years

A former treasurer of a Suffolk-based disability charity has pleaded guilty to a £212,000 fraud against the organisation.

Neil Payne, 51, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, pleaded guilty at Ipswich Crown Court on Wednesday to one count of fraud by abuse of position during his time as treasurer of Dial Lowestoft and Waveney.

According to a statement from the charity, Payne defrauded it of £212,639.52 between 2010 and January this year.

The statement from the 31-year-old charity said the fraud almost caused it to close.

David Savill, service manager at Dial, said: “There was a risk it could have closed. But the trustees and employees decided very early on that we wanted to keep going it going.

“We are finding just enough funds to keep going, but in the coming months the Charity Commission will require us to build up our reserves.

“If the charity was not here, a lot of people would not have access to the assistance they are entitled to.”

But Savill said that the charity still had “less than half of the £120,000 it requires to operate each year”.

According to the charity’s entry on the Charity Commission website, Dial had an income of £137,266 and spent £119,288 in the year to 3 October 2016.

Payne will be sentenced on 6 July.

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