Mum who stole from Portishead school gets out of prison

A mum of two who stole money from a North Somerset primary school and defrauded a Bristol elderly people's charity to pay it back has been released from prison.

Gillian Rekesius was PTA treasurer at St Barnabas Primary School, in Portishead, when she stole £1600 fundraising money instead of banking it.

She wrote five cheques totalling £920 while she worked as an administrator for the Anchor Society in Alma Vale Road, Clifton, to try to compensate.

Rekesius, 39, of Leeside in Portishead, pleaded guilty to theft and fraud. Weston-super-Mare magistrates jailed her last month for 14 weeks.

But Judge Jamie Tabor QC upheld her appeal against sentence. He increased the jail term to 16 weeks but suspending it for a year, with a year's supervision.

"This is a classic robbing Peter to pay Paul. What a mess," he said.

Rekesius was made chairman of the school PTA in 2005 and later became treasurer.

The school raised £800 from a fair in May last year which Rekesius was asked to bank.

But the school found only £330 in the account and tried to contact Rekesius by phone and email to see what happened.

Eventually she admitted using money for herself and paid the school a cheque, which bounced.

It became apparent that Rekesius also did not pay in money the school raised during Christmas and New Year this year.

The school made an appointment for her to explain herself, but she didn't attend and the school called the police.

Rekesius wrote five cheques from the Anchor Society account to try and repay the school's money.

Rekesius told police in her interview that she was too busy to pay the money into the school account and decided to pay the school using cheques from the Anchor Society, for whom she could write cheques up to the value of £250.

Nicholas Fridd, defending, told the court Rekesius had a minor stroke earlier this year and was on medication while incarcerated at Eastwood Park prison.

"This case arises out of bad money management," he said.

"It was not spent on gambling, drugs or drink, she simply didn't manage her household bills and debts and fell in to arrears of some £5000-£7000."

The court heard Rekesius's second husband found out about what was going on after his wife used her allotted phone call from prison and told her solicitor to pass the news on to him.

Mr Fridd said his client's family rallied round to sort things out and her family home would be sold to pay off what was owed.

The Judge told Rekesius to pay back every penny of what she had taken from the Portishead school and the Bristol charity over the course of the year.