Judge's stark warning to woman who defrauded Scarborough care home

Kimberley Thomson, 42, stole more than £9,000 during a six-month thieving spree when she was manager of Ravensworth Care Home, a not-for-profit Quaker’s organisation in Scarborough.

Thomson now has four weeks to repay the care home in Belgrave Crescent after a judge at York Crown Court deferred sentence and told her it was the only way she would avoid prison.

Prosecutor Nick Murphy said that in April 2022, managers at the care home held a meeting with the clerk to the Volunteer Committee at the Yorkshire Friends’ Housing Society, which owns the care home, to discuss concerns about Thomson’s “management of the home’s finances”.

One of the managers provided evidence which showed that between November 2021 and April 2022, Thomson had been paying herself “additional, unauthorised wages on a number of occasions”.

Thomson, of Hawthorn Walk, Eastfield, had transferred the extra money from the home’s bank account into her own account.

Mr Murphy said the wages racket was to pay off the credit-card debts of a family member.

The Quakers clerk reported the matter to police and suspended Thomson from her role in May 2022.

A police financial investigator found that during that six-month period, Thomson should have received £10,275 wages but her fraudulent transactions netted her an extra £5,617, or £15,892 in total.

During that same period, she made payments totalling just over £2,973 from the home’s current account into her own funds, “sometimes purporting to be expenses claims”.

Between December 2021 and March 2022, two further payments of £475 were transferred specifically to pay off a family member’s credit-card debts.

The total fraud came to just over £9,541 – money that Thomson now has to pay back to the care home or lose her liberty.

She was quizzed twice by police, firstly in June 2022 when she denied the offences, and again in January 2023, when she admitted “some parts but provided various excuses”, including the suggestion that one of her bosses had given her permission to “put Botox on expenses and charge it to the home”, which was a lie.

She ultimately admitted fraud by abuse of position and appeared for sentence on November 11.

In a victim statement read out by the prosecution, the clerk to the Quakers’ housing society said that due to Thomson’s deceit, the home had incurred more than £39,000 in additional costs including legal advice, resources and interim-management support.

Thomson’s fraudulent behaviour had had a major impact on the elderly residents and their families and resulted in reduced investment in maintenance and improvements to the building.

“We are a non-profit organisation and therefore our income should be used for residents,” she added.

She said that staff had been “traumatised” by Thomson’s actions and that staff turnover and sickness rates had risen following her sacking.

Between December 2022 and the following January, six staff members, including managers, had left, with some citing “work-based stress”.

They had to recruit a whole new management team which had been costly and had an impact on the running of the home and its rating by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

She said that Thomson’s criminality had had a “huge and lasting impact on the reputation of the home”.

Defence barrister Beatrice Allsop said that Thomson had now “lost her good character”.

“She is extremely remorseful and now accepts full responsibility,” added Ms Allsop.

She said that Thomson had let a “bad (personal) situation…spiral out of control and she is extremely embarrassed about that”.

She added that Thomson, a mother-of-four and grandmother-of-five, was now working as a cleaner while supporting her long-time partner who had a life-threatening illness.

Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, told Thomson: “What you did was absolutely shameful.

“This was an institution that was caring for the vulnerable and you removed funds for your own purposes.

"It’s a despicable act.”

He added: “It’s had a devastating effect on this organisation which does nothing but good.

“It’s very difficult, as a judge, to put aside emotions because upon first reading this case, I was so angry that I was determined to lock you up because it’s such a bad offence, but when I look at it in the cold light of day, you are a woman who has never been in trouble before, you had your own stresses in your life at the time and acted completely out of character.

“You have very real caring responsibilities of your own (and) I understand you can pay back this money.”

He told Thomson that if she repaid the entire amount “for the good of the people in that care home” then he would suspend the inevitable jail sentence, “with other punishments added on to it”.

“This is the best way of getting the victims compensated,” he added.

“But I want to see the colour of your money to make sure that this isn’t just words and that the money (doesn’t) disappear once you have been punished.

"If that’s not paid, then down those stairs you are going.”

Thomson will be sentenced on December 9.