Mum stole £31,000 from safe at school

Claire Mosby was branded “reprehensible” by a judge for placing her colleagues under suspicion by planting a spare key in the safe at Swarcliffe Primary, Leeds, as the net began to close on her two-year deception.

Mosby, 38, is a former pupil and parent governor at the school and worked as office manager when she stole cash from the safe between 2009 and 2001.

The cash had been collected for school dinners, from the school’s nursery, breakfast club, after school club and a voluntary fund, made up of contributions to pay for extras such as school trips.

Instead of banking the takings, the married mother-of-three used it fund her online gambling and bingo habit.

Judge Christopher Batty said: “Swarcliffe Primary School is the heart of the community in which you and your family still live.

“The money that you stole represents the monies collected by the school from parents in the school. Money you know only too well they could ill-afford to give in the first place.”

He added: “I’m afraid it comes down to this – you did not care. Your need was too great.”

On the weekend before the deception was about to be discovered, in March 2011, Mosby went into the school and put a spare key in the safe in a bid to cover her tracks. The next day she went to police to report cash being stolen.

The judge said those actions amounted to Mosby “laying down your defence”. He added: “No one needs to tell you how reprehensible your behaviour is.”

A jury found Mosby guilty of theft after a trial at Leeds Crown Court in November last year.

Mosby, of Swarcliffe Avenue, claimed she had known cash was going missing but did not report it as she would be putting the head teacher under pressure.