Durham student's luxury lifestyle funded by theft

Dec 20 2008 by Neil McKay, The Journal

A WOMAN who built up a huge shoe collection while fleecing £500,000 from a university college was behind bars last night.

As bursar, 59-year-old Christine Starkey was entrusted with the finances at the prestigious St Chad’s College, Durham, whose alumni include polar explorer Robert Swan.

But instead of managing the funds to the advantage of the college’s students, Starkey stole cash to fund an obsession with clothes and a lavish lifestyle.

She even took £10,000 in cash that students paid for laundry tokens.

Now Starkey is serving three years behind bars for transferring £488,000 from St Chad’s accounts into her own in a series of 198 transactions over a five-year period.

Steven Orange, prosecuting at Durham Crown Court, said her husband, now living in Spain, knew nothing about the thefts.

Starkey already had a conviction for stealing thousands of pounds from a garage before being given the job at the college.

Robert Mochrie, defending, said his client had a compulsion to buy clothes.

When officers raided her £240,000 house in Eaglescliffe, Teesside – now sold – they found boxes of clothes strewn around, many of the items unworn.

But Mr Mochrie conceded that some of the stolen money went to pay the mortgage on the house, and on an extension.

The cash from the house sale has been frozen pending a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing next year.

Starkey admitted stealing £488,000 from 2002 to December 2007, when the college became aware that money was missing. She also admitted money laundering, in that she used the stolen cash to buy products.

Mr Orange said: “St Chad’s has about 300 students and as bursar Mrs Starkey’s responsibility covered all financial matters.”

She diverted money from the college’s staff salary account, from profits it made on commercial ventures and the laundry tokens.

Starkey then covered up the thefts by misreporting the accounts at finance meetings.

She initially admitted to the college finance committee stealing £93,000 and was sacked. Officials contacted police.

As detectives scoured her accounts, and those of the college, the true extent of the theft was revealed.

In a victim impact statement, college principal Dr Joe Cassidy wrote that the breach of trust damaged staff morale, caused funding headaches because higher education authorities needed assurances about how it handled finances and had disillusioned benefactors, many of whom were retired clergymen and not wealthy people.

Mr Orange said: “If funding is withdrawn, as has been threatened, the college would cease to exist as an independent charity.”

Judge Richard Lowden, the Recorder of Durham, said the victim in this case was all too real, and not merely a financial institution, and that the total stolen was more than the college held in endowment from supporters.

He said: “No doubt they (the benefactors) have been terribly hurt by this. The breach of trust is gross.”

He gave her credit for a guilty plea offered at a previous hearing in October and jailed her for three years.

The case was aggravated by a previous conviction for taking £10,000 from a Teesside car dealership where she worked.

Dr Cassidy said St Chad’s had tightened up its procedures: “The unauthorised transactions were hidden in batch bank-to-bank transfers, and we have now introduced a range of measures to ensure that this can never happen again.

“We have a bursar and accountant rather than one sole financial officer, and all finance staff have to pass the standard criminal records check. All financial transactions need authorisation from at least two people, and we are due to hire new auditors.”