War memorial treasurer walks free

Roy Bickerton, 77, of Sandhill Rise, Pontefract, yesterday pleaded guilty to false accounting in a bid to satisfy lottery bosses that grant funding had been spent on the former mining town’s monument to its fallen heroes. But a judge said he was satisfied that Bickerton, who is also a former independent ward councillor for Featherstone, did not falsify the documents for personal gain but instead did it to cover up sloppy accounting.

The charges arose when Bickerton was treasurer of the Featherstone District Memorial Garden Fund.

The Big Lottery Fund had provided money for the memorial and had asked for invoices for the project once it was finished.

Yesterday Bickerton pleaded guilty to fabricating invoices totalling £5,700 between September 2009 and December 2010.

Sentencing him to a 12 month conditional discharge, Judge
Tom Bayliss QC said Bickerton would have been sent to prison if he had pocketed any of the money.