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Manager who stole £220k from school to buy fleet of taxis in Gambia jailed after six-year investigation

Pic:Cheques cashed: Kirsty Holmes, 45, was business manager at Battersea Park School 
Crime reporter(wp/es):

A school business manager has been jailed after draining her employer’s accounts of more than £220,000 to set up a taxi company in The Gambia with her boyfriend.

Kirsty Holmes, 45, and her partner Sunday Kalu, 47, siphoned off taxpayers’ money from Battersea Park School over a period of six months.

The pair enlisted friends to cash fraudulent cheques worth between £7,500 and £32,000 before the money was transferred to them. They moved to The Gambia and bought a property and a fleet of taxis and minibuses. 

For three years the couple, from Gillingham, Kent, ran a transport business in the West African nation, police said. 

At Kingston crown court, the couple were jailed for three and a half years after being found guilty of theft after a six-year investigation. The court heard Holmes worked at Battersea Park School from January 2009 until late 2011.

The school, in the borough of Wandsworth, was taken over and became a Harris Academy in 2014 after a damning Ofsted inspection found it was one of the worst in the country, plagued by dire results and truancy.

It has now turned around and was rated outstanding in an Ofsted report this year.

On her LinkedIn account, Holmes boasts of “29 years administrative experience” and she was “responsible for preparing annual budgets of up to £7 million and provided expertise in long-term financial management” for Battersea Park School. 

Between May and November 2011 — following the 2010/2011 financial audit — 15 cheques totalling £220,209 were paid out of the school’s account.

Holmes resigned in October 2011 and left the school the following month. In January 2012 a fresh audit unearthed the cheque payouts and found there were no corresponding invoices.

Bosses at the school, which was placed in special measures in June 2013, reported the theft to police in March 2012. Detectives established the cheques had been deposited into bank accounts around Gillingham and Chatham, which were found to belong to friends of Holmes and Kalu.

The money was later deposited into the pair’s bank accounts. All the accounts involved were emptied by the end of December 2011.

Holmes was arrested at Gatwick Airport in December 2014 after returning to Britain when her relationship broke down. Kalu was arrested the following year. Both denied knowledge of the theft and blamed each other.

Ds Donnett Oseni, the Met CID officer who led the investigation, said: “This was a very difficult case that took more than six years to bring to trial, with most witnesses reluctant to give evidence.

“Holmes abused a position of trust by stealing school funds — taxpayers’ money that was intended for the running of the school and the education of the students. The jail sentence handed down reflects the seriousness of the offence.

“I hope this case sends out the message that we will pursue prosecutions, even when years pass and the suspect thinks they have evaded authorities.”

Ten charged in fraud squad probe into Grenfell Tower fire alarms firm

Pic:Fire ripped through Grenfell Tower in June 2017 (wp)
Crime reporter(wp/es):

Ten people have been charged with offences following a four-year investigation by the Met’s complex fraud team into the contractor responsible for fire alarms at Grenfell Tower.

Housing services company Lakehouse was being probed after accusations it installed defective safety equipment in hundreds of London properties. 

An Evening Standard investigation last year revealed the inquiry relating to a £184 million government grant to renovate council properties and install alarms and emergency lighting.

Hackney council had received allegations of “fraud and overcharging” from whistleblowers.

A council investigation found some fire safety work was “defective, including incorrectly installed alarms and emergency lighting systems”. Lakehouse denied any wrongdoing.

The council wrote to 166 town hall chief executives warning them to check work done by Lakehouse and subcontractor Polyteck. 

Today police revealed 10 people have been charged. Andrew Langston, 40, and Lee David Wylie, 46 — among five people charged with bribery and theft — are understood to have been contract managers at Lakehouse.

The other three are understood to have worked for a variety of contractors on behalf of Lakehouse. 

Langston and Wylie’s partners Josephine Ashley-Russell, 37, and Sarah Kipping, 46, were charged with money laundering, as was Leslie Ratty, 67. Costantinos Polycarpou, 40, Polyteck’s managing director, and his father, Yiannakis, 63, the company chairman, were charged with bribery. 

A Met spokesman said: “In 2014 the Borough of Hackney referred an allegation of fraud to the Met. A total of 10 people have now been charged.” 

The allegedly defective works were signed off by staff at Hackney Homes, the arms-length management organisation set up by the council in 2006 in order to receive its allocation from the Government’s £1.6 billion Decent Homes programme, which aimed to help councils raise the standards of housing stock. 

Sources said the allegations date back to the inception of the scheme’s 2011 funding strategy. A spokeswoman for Hackney council said: “We are pleased that after a long period of investigation, this matter is finally being progressed.”

A Lakehouse spokesman said: “It would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.” Polyteck has been approached for comment.

Cars set to be banned from half of roads in London's Square Mile and speed limits slashed to 15mph

Staff reporter(wp/es):

Vehicles would be banned from about half of the Square Mile’s roads under radical plans announced today to improve safety and cut congestion.

The proposals from the City of London Corporation — intended to usher in a “world-class” street scene in the financial district — could see speed limits slashed to 15mph.

“Pedestrian priority” zones would ban cars, vans, taxis and buses from using some routes, apart from for access. At least half of the roads in the Square Mile are earmarked for pedestrian priority status, including parts of Threadneedle Street near the Bank of England, and roads around Mansion House, Moorgate and Liverpool Street stations. Bicycles would be expected to give way to pedestrians in these zones.

The plans, laid out in the Corporation’s first long-term transport strategy, cover 25 years but some elements could come in next year. 

Chris Hayward, chairman of the planning and transportation committee, said the “radical” proposals are aimed at “future-proofing the Square Mile”. He added: “This is an ambitious piece of work, but the City of London is a unique district. With over 480,000 workers  commuting into the Square Mile on a day-to-day basis, these are some of the busiest streets in London and we need to be open for business.”

The Corporation — the local authority for the area — also called on Transport for London to rethink the Congestion Charge, introduced in 2003, which it says is outdated.

The report outlining the plans said a “road user charge” could be varied according to demand and vehicle type — opening the door to higher charges for more polluting vehicles.

The draft proposals, which were being presented to elected members today, also call for a “core cycling network” including two-metre wide protected cycle lanes on busy routes.

Simon Munk, of the London Cycling Campaign, said: “We’re very excited by the plans, which stand in stark contrast to some of their city neighbours. 

“It is a complex issue but it’s about designing the right spaces for the right mix of people, so we don’t end up with lots of pedestrian priority where there needs to be space for cyclists. The streets must be designed to encourage people to move and interact calmly.”

Last year, the Corporation banned all traffic except buses and bicycles from Bank junction between 7am and 7pm on weekdays, after the death of City worker Ying Tao, who was hit by a lorry as she cycled to work in June 2015.

The Planning and Transportation Committee will make a decision on the proposals on October 30. 

Separate plans to pedestrianise streets in the eastern City were published in the summer.