Charity embezzler sent to prison
02/20/07 -- BBC News WA former charity worker Neil Gillies
who admitted embezzling money from groups supporting suicide awareness and
grieving families has been jailed for a year.
Neil Gillies, from Glasgow, was also ordered to pay £3,500 in compensation.
Inverness Sheriff Court was earlier told that Gillies had forged an MSP's
signature to make a fraudulent application to a bank.
Sheriff Alasdair MacFadyen said there was no appropriate alternative to prison
for the 51-year-old.
The court heard how Gillies had used Mary Scanlon, a list MSP at the time, as a
reference for funding of £221,772 in 2003.
He also admitted embezzling money from a suicide awareness charity and a support
group for grieving families in the Highlands and Islands.
Sheriff MacFadyen said: "The gravity of the offences - the abuse of support by
the holder of a public office and the breach of trust shown - are such that the
alternative to custody is not appropriate."
Sentence on Gillies, of Meadowside Quay Walk, Glasgow, had been deferred for a
month.
Gillies set up a support group with his wife after their son Kevin died in a
road accident on the Isle of Skye in 1999.
