Greedy sisters con taxman out of £446,000 and splurge cash on clothes and holidays

Sara and Jean Barnbrook, who ran Girl Guide groups crossed Leeds, exploited a foundation Gift Aid scam to bargain the immense immoderate from HMRC, a justice was told connected Monday

Two sisters who utilized a charity Gift Aid scam to bargain astir £450,000 from HMRC while moving Girl Guide groups person been jailed.

Sara and Jean Barnbrook defrauded the taxpayer retired of hundreds of thousands of pounds by claiming repayments connected non-existent donations implicit six years.

Leeds Crown Court heard Sara Barnbrook, 54, fraudulently claimed much than £482,000 successful Gift Aid repayments - of which £446,000 was paid retired - and her sister Jean Barnbrook, 51, helped launder the wealth betwixt 2013 and 2019.

The sisters past utilized the currency to walk connected indebtedness repayments, location improvements, clothes, hotels, question and luxury items, the tribunal heard.

On Monday, Sara Barnbrook was jailed for 3 years aft pleading blameworthy to cheating the nationalist gross and Jean Barnbrook was jailed for 30 months aft admitting to entering into a wealth laundering arrangement.

Prosecutor Angus MacDonald said, astatine the clip of the offending, Jean and Sara Barnbrook ran 2 Girl Guide groups and 1 Brownies portion successful the Crossgates and Manston areas of Leeds.

He told the court: "Sara Barnbrook utilized the units to perpetrate fraud against HMRC by exploiting the Gift Aid strategy - an income taxation alleviation disposable to charities registered successful the UK. It allows charities to reclaim 25% of immoderate payments made.

"Sara Barnbrook submitted fraudulent claims to HMRC, stating the 3 units had received £1.9 cardinal successful charitable donations implicit an eight-year period."

The tribunal heard the donors named connected the forms "had nary cognition their identities were being utilized successful furtherance of fraud". Mr MacDonald said the fraud was truthful brazen immoderate repayments were claimed aft the applicable Girl Guide units had closed down.

The tribunal heard aft the repayments were received, the wealth was withdrawn successful currency oregon transferred to the sisters' idiosyncratic accounts.

The fraud was discovered aft Jean Barnbrook called her slope successful April 2019, chasing a Gift Aid outgo she claimed was expected by 1st Manston Guides - a portion which had been closed for 18 months - prompting a transgression probe by HMRC.

"The prosecution accidental that telephone is wide grounds Jean Barnbrook was alert of the fraud being committed by her sister," Mr MacDonald said.

He told the tribunal that, during the investigation, Sara Barnbrook forwarded a missive to HMRC from idiosyncratic called "Louise" taking work for the Gift Aid claims.

Investigators recovered that "Louise" was fictitious and the missive came from Jean Barnbrook's computer. Mr MacDonald said: "That missive was a past hopeless effort by these defendants to divert attraction distant from their offending."

When Sara Barnbrook was arrested she said: "Jean had thing to bash with it," the tribunal heard. Anastasis Tasou, defending Sara Barnbrook, said she was a pistillate who "has ne'er been successful occupation for thing before" and "is present facing the imaginable of an contiguous custodial term".

He told the court: "Thirty years of devoted and voluntary work to the Girl Guides should not beryllium wholly undermined by this fraud which began successful 2013 and did spell connected for immoderate sizeable clip - six years.

"The fraud was calved precise soon aft the decease of Ms Barnbrook's parent and started disconnected much arsenic a tendency to bring her modular of surviving up to a modular of surviving which astir of america instrumentality for granted."

He added: "She can't explicate adequately wherefore it spiralled retired of control." Mr Tasou said Sara Barnbrook had had "a disadvantaged puerility and a disadvantaged adulthood" and inactive maintained that a batch of the wealth was really spent connected the Girl Guides.

Glenn Parsons, defending Jean Barnbrook, said she was "absolutely babelike connected her sister", who had "substantially driven" the fraud. Judge Mushtaq Khokhar told the defendants: "This was a fraud against the nationalist purse and erstwhile radical specified arsenic you perpetrate these offences, they perpetrate those offences retired of greed.

"The cognition seems to beryllium that it is simply a victimless crime, but fto maine archer you, it is not a victimless transgression - the victims are not conscionable the state, but each payer who contributes to the Exchequer."

Tim Atkins, operational lead, of the HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service, said: "These sisters stole wealth that was expected to enactment genuine charities and they utilized it to money a manner they could not legitimately afford.

"They utilized their presumption of spot to forge claims, and I anticipation these sentences service arsenic a informing to others that we tin and bash analyse maltreatment of the Gift Aid system."