Southend woman jailed for stealing over £200,000 from charity she worked for

A woman from Southend has been jailed for stealing almost £217,000 from the charity she worked for, following a years-long fraud that included falsified records, forged cheques and unauthorised purchases. The scale and duration of her offences shocked investigators.

Isabella Owunari George, 39, of Wansfell Gardens, Southend, used her trusted position as office manager at the Catholic charity Caritas Social Action Network, to systematically drain funds from the charity between December 2017 and August 2023.

A detailed investigation by Essex Police’s specialist Economic Crime Team uncovered that George had made nearly 200 unauthorised withdrawals totalling just under £41,000. Detectives also identified 96 fraudulently signed cheques worth more than £171,000 that she cashed herself.

In addition to these acts, George used the charity’s credit card without permission to make personal purchases exceeding £9,000. Items she spent money on included private dentistry, among other lifestyle expenses.

Her total theft came to £216,990.

She was arrested and later admitted three charges – fraud by false representation, false accounting, and fraud by abuse of position. She pleaded guilty at Basildon Crown Court on 28 March. On Thursday 26 June, she was sentenced to three years in prison at the same court.

The Chief Executive Officer of the charity, Raymond Friel OBE, said: “It was with a heavy heart that we heard of the sentencing of Isabella George. We have robust systems in place to make sure that something like this can never happen again.”

Detective Constable Lee Pudney from the Economic Crime Team, who led the investigation, said:

“This was a meticulous investigation that examined hundreds of transactions to establish the full extent of Isabella George’s crimes.

She abused her position within the charity to steal a huge amount of money and spend it on things like dentistry work.

In an attempt to hide her offending she falsified company accounts over the course of five years and admitted using the accounting system to incorrectly assign purchases, cheques, and cash withdrawals to legitimate company projects.

This was planned out and cynical. But thanks to the painstaking work carried out she was left with no option but to admit her crimes and is now behind bars.”

George is of Nigerian nationality and has also been involved with a number of limited companies in the UK, according to public records.

The full extent of the damage to the charity, including the impact on its services and beneficiaries, has not been disclosed.