Trusted GP surgery manager stole £320k from business as workers feared for jobs
The practice manager of a GP surgery stole more than £320,000 from the business leaving staff and patients "devastated."
Clare Boland, 51, used her trusted role to pay herself thousands of pounds a month on top of her £53,000 salary, with the money disguised as regular payments to a locum doctor. According to Swansea Court, the fraud went on for more than four years and had a significant impact on the surgery. Now she has been jailed for three years.
Prosecutor Peter Donnison said Boland began working at Fairfield surgery in Port Talbot back in 2009. At the time of the fraud, she was the practice manager, a role which came for the sole responsibility for managing the surgery's finances. This included organising payment to doctors and staff and paying bills and expenses.
In February 2022, one of the doctors at the surgery happened to see a document which set out staff payments. They noticed a payment of £9,000 which appeared to be to a doctor who had worked as a one-day-a-week locum at the surgery some years ago.
Concerned about the payment, the doctor contacted the pay-roll company which handled salaries, and found out that regular payments in their thousands were made to that account since August 2017. It subsequently emerged that the Co-op bank account in question belonged not to the locum medic but to Boland and that a total of £324,706.85 had been paid into it between August 2017 and February 2022
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The prosecutor said on March 14, 2022, the partners at the surgery spoke to the defendant about the payments to the locum and were told it was an "admin error." The payments, according to Boland, should have been recorded as going to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs for monies owned.
Clare Boland was sentenced to three years in prison for stealing more than £320,000 from the Port Talbot GP surgery where she worked (Media Wales)The next day, Boland emailed the partners setting out her responsibilities and duties as practice manager and told them she felt "humiliated" at the way she had been approached about the payments. She was suspended from her duties on March 18 and invited to a number of meetings to discuss the situation. However, WalesOnline reported that she repeatedly declined to meet, saying that she was unwell.
Bolan was arrested at her home address in May, and subsequently answered "no comment" to all questions asked in interview. Since the fraud was discovered, it was found that a number of bills and liabilities which should have been paid by Boland in the course of her duties - including one for £91,000 - were not paid.
The prosecutor added that the two partners in the practice are liable for deficits in the business, and the fraud has had a significant emotional and financial impact on them.
Former practice manager Clare Boland, aged 51, of Shelone Road, Briton Ferry, had previously pleaded guilty to one count of fraud by abuse of position when she appeared in the dock for sentencing. She had no previous convictions.
Judge Catherine Richard said while the fraud was not the most sophisticated of offences the harm caused was significant. She added that the starting point for sentence was five-and-a-half years custody but that would be reduced to four years to reflect the mitigation in the case, primarily Boland's previous good character and the "very significant" impact on the defendant's daughter.
With a one-quarter discount for her guilty plea, Boland was sentenced to three years in prison. The defendant will serve up to half that period in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community. A proceeds of crime investigation will now be carried out into Boland's finances.
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