Lawyers have worked out a deal to ensure charities that lost more than £95,000 to a Perthshire fraudster can get back every penny.
Lindsay MacCallum, who defrauded the cancer charity, Rainbow Valley, of £85,978 and embezzled £9,505 from the Anthony Nolan Trust, was jailed in October for three years.
The 61-year-old has already repaid £25,000 to Rainbow Valley but it was feared if a criminal confiscation order was granted, any other reclaimed money would have been diverted straight into Treasury funds.
At Falkirk Sheriff Court, fiscal Asif Rashid said it had been agreed with MacCallum’s lawyers confiscation proceedings should be paused to give her until March to repay the remaining outstanding funds to both charities.
Advocate Sarah Loosemore said MacCallum, who was not present in court, had undertaken to do so and requires three months to liquidate the funds.
She said: “The best place for this money is for it to go back to the charities.”
Mr Rashid said if the money was repaid by March, action under the Proceeds of Crime Act would be withdrawn.
MacCallum was ordered to be brought from prison for a final court hearing on March 5.
‘The court has done us justice’
Mother-of-two MacCallum, of Aberfoyle, was told in October by her sentencing sheriff Maryam Labaki that she had “systematically and deliberately” perpetrated “calculating” frauds on the third sector organisations, and “betrayed” cancer victims.
Despite being in no financial difficulty, she forged signatures of Rainbow Valley staff and rerouted cash from fundraising accounts for her own use between 2011 and 2021.
MacCallum worked as a fundraising manager for the Anthony Nolan Trust from 1995 to 2012 before she left to set up Rainbow Valley with best friend Angela MacVicar, 64.
In 2005, Angela lost her daughter Johanna to leukaemia and the foundation was established in her honour.
The pair worked together for ten years before a fall-out in 2022
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Angela stumbled upon MacCallum’s decade of deceit after discovering discrepancies in an account set up for a fundraising ball.
Mrs MacVicar said outside on Wednesday: “The court has done us justice.”
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