Clerk spent stolen council money on cocaine binges

A parish clerk who was jailed for 18 months after stealing more than £60,000 of council funds spent nearly all of the money on his cocaine habit, police have said.

Steven Gillingwater, 36, of Kendal Close in Slough, was employed at Colnbrook with Poyle Parish Council from May 2023 to look after its administration and finances.

Thames Valley Police (TVP) has been unable to recover any of the £64,000 he stole by forging signatures on 18 cheques, diverting the cash to his own accounts.

The parish council said it has initiated a review of its governance and financial controls.

Det Sgt Georgina Adey, from TVP, said Gillingwater stole 60% of the council's annual budget.

She said it took months of hard work by her team of fraud specialists working with parish council staff, whose signatures he had forged, to bring the case to court.

"We sent some of those cheques and also some of those signature samples from the councillors to our colleagues in our forensic unit who compared those cheques and confirmed that they were not the signatures of the councillors," she said.

The detective also told BBC Radio Berkshire she feared Gillingwater would be given a suspended sentence, saying it was "such a great feeling and it made it all worth it" when the judge imposed the custodial term.

Unlike their larger and more powerful borough and district counterparts which are answerable to the Local Government Ombudsman, parish councils do not report to one central government department.

Instead, how they are run falls to a number of organisations making it harder to complain if you think something is amiss.

Legislation dating back to the Localism Act of 2011 makes it a legal requirement for borough and district councils to subject their finances and operations to independent scrutiny but the Act does not apply to parish councils.

It means no-one can be sure how often councils like Colnbrook with Poyle fall victim to fraud committed by their own employees as no database exists.

It is not the first parish council in recent years to lose money in this way.

Four years ago a clerk who defrauded two Oxfordshire parish councils out of more than £160,000 was jailed for four years.

Joanne Wills, from Chinnor, stole £135,000 from Towersey Parish Council and £26,800 from Chinnor Parish Council when she was assistant clerk.

Colnbrook with Poyle is unlikely to ever get back the money Gillingwater stole.

In a statement, it said his offending had "ramifications for (the council) and its residents".

"We now look forward to moving forward with council business and putting this difficult and upsetting episode firmly behind us," it added.