More than £100,000 stolen from a local archaeology charity has been recouped after its former treasurer sold her house to repay the money.
Pamela Bent, who was a trustee and treasurer of the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (Sharp), pleaded guilty to one count of fraud and three counts of false accounting in August 2024.
The charges included fraud by abuse of position and falsifying documents at the charity, which claims to be one of the UK’s largest independent archaeological projects and is based near Hunstanton in Norfolk.
Bent received a two-year suspended prison sentence and 50 days of community service in October 2024.
She had paid back around half of the more than £115,000 stolen before the fraud came to light, with £61,000 still outstanding by the end of 2024, the charity reported.
The charity has now confirmed to Civil Society that all of the money previously stolen has been repaid, with Bent forced by the court to sell her house to repay the remainder of the money.
New measures to prevent any future fraud
Sharp’s most recently filed accounts for the year ending 30 September 2024 showed that the charity had a total annual income and expenditure of around £33,000, prior to Bent repaying the stolen money.
The charity wrote that the 2023-24 financial year “was particularly affected by the financial fraud case that was ongoing up to and throughout the season”.
“On the run-up to the season work was being undertaken to improve the financial systems in place,” it said.
“At the same time we carried out consultation with the membership on the constitution, as well as providing more open access and transparency of our policies and governance.”
The charity also outlined the measures it has undertaken to improve its financial systems in a document issued to its membership, seen by Civil Society.
These measures include mandating that any trustees in future are either already volunteers on the archaeological project or must maintain “regular contact more than once a week with a proxy on site treasurer”.
Among other measures, the charity has also now implemented more oversight by trustees on the charity’s bank mandate and an annual review of this.
It has also closed all its extra bank accounts and now requires regular meeting attendance by the treasurer, alongside new accounting practices and more external scrutiny.
“The main takeaway however is that we now realise trust does need to be challenged, questions need to be asked, procedures are there to protect charities and are not just obstacles or a waste of time,” its document reads.
The charity’s excavation director, Eleanor Blakelock, told Civil Society that now that the charity has regained the stolen money, it has been able to cover costs and maintain and repair its site, including a newly refurbished visitor centre ahead of its 30th anniversary.
