Ex-bank manager jailed

Mar 1 2008 by Our Correspondent, Western Mail

A FORMER bank manager was jailed yesterday for stealing £160,000 from local church groups, a charity and a company.

Brian Lewis, 66, was sentenced to two and a half years by a judge who described his systematic thieving as a “gross breach of trust”.

The court heard how he stole £160,000 in five years in a bid to save his own business, a gift shop at Llanrwst.

He was trusted by friends and colleagues and given control of the funds of church organisations, his local Rotary club and a company where he acted as financial director.

But now Lewis and his wife face losing their home at Crud yr Awel, Llanrwst, which has been put on the market to pay off his criminal debts.

His downfall came when he was late putting in the church accounts, and during a meeting with the Archdeacon of Bangor, he admitted he had stolen money, said prosecutor Karen Mullin.

Police were alerted and their investigation revealed the full extent of his dishonesty.

He admitted six charges of theft, spanning five years from February 2002 to June 2007 by stealing £36,000 from Friends of St Michael’s Church at Betws-y-Coed, £5,000 from St Michael’s Betws-y-Coed Trust and £49,089 from St Mary’s Church in Betws-y-Coed.

Lewis admitted stealing £7,908 from Conwy Valley Rotary Club and £49,900 from LetsXL, his former employers.

While the total stolen amounted to about £160,000, the court was told the actual loss would be less because he had stolen from some complainants to pay back others.

It was the defence case that the losses amounted to a little under £100,000 while the prosecution maintained the true losses were closer to £120,000.

The court heard that friends and colleagues felt totally let down by Lewis, who was said to have stolen to try to keep his own business, Crwst Crafts at Llanrwst, afloat.

His actions had also damaged the relationship the church and the Rotary club had with the local community, who expected funds raised to be dealt with properly, the court heard.

Lewis returned to his native Wales when he took a retirement severance package from his job as a bank manager in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, aged 47.

Judge John Rogers QC said, “This was a gross breach of trust by a former bank manager. You have accepted the inevitability of a prison sentence. I have to decide how long you will serve.”

Defending barrister Duncan Bould said that his client was deeply ashamed and remorseful. It was Lewis’s “earnest wish” that all the organisations should be repaid.

“It spiralled out of control and he tried to find a way out which he could control, and to avoid him having to reveal to his wife the mess that he had got himself into,” said Mr Bould.

The irony, Mold Crown Court was told, was that if Lewis had called a halt to it all much earlier, it could have been solved because there was sufficient equity in their home. Lewis showed no emotion as sentence was passed. There were sounds of crying from the public gallery as he was led to the cells.

A financial hearing under The Proceeds of Crime Act will be held in May.