The British Heart Foundation (BHF) has said it will implement tighter controls to prevent future cases of fraud against the charity after it paid several invoices for work that was never done.

The statement follows a court hearing last week of former BHF delivery driver Michael Young, who defrauded the charity out of £20,000.

Thirty-four-year-old Young from Antrim, Northern Ireland, submitted invoices for work up to ten months after his contract ended. His scheme was discovered after he phoned the charity to ask why one of his fake invoices was not processed.

Young’s defence lawyer told Antrim Crown Court that the fraud was overlooked because the British Heart Foundation’s head office was based in England.

BHF retail director, Mike Taylor, said: “We are saddened that anyone would seek to defraud a charity. We will take every step possible to recover all of the money so we can continue our life-saving work into the fight against heart disease.

“We have implemented changes to prevent a similar incident occurring again. We value every single donation here at the BHF and invest this money in fighting the UK’s single biggest killer – coronary heart disease.”  

A spokesperson for BHF said the charity plans to make additional checks when payments are made and will change the way that invoices are processed.

Antrim Crown Court judge Desmond Marrinan told Young that while “any accountant worth his salt should have picked this up… you have defrauded a charity which does great work to help people who are very ill”.

Young was granted bail and given until the end of the year to pay the money back or face a prison sentence. He will be sentenced in early December.

BHF’s total income is up to £275.1m

Meanwhile, British Heart Foundations’s report and accounts for the year 2013/14 show that its total income is up 4.3 per cent to £275.1m, while funds available for charitable distribution increased by £2.2m up to £136.9m.

The report shows that voluntary income activities, including fundraising and events, accounted for £102.3m of its total income.

From the £136.9m income figure, 41 per cent came from legacies, 34 per cent from fundraising, 22 per cent from retail and 3 per cent from investments.

BHF recorded its highest-ever legacy income, up 3 per cent to £55.5m, while traditional fundraising income grew from £41.6m to £46.8m. Its retail income was £169.5m, before support costs, up from £161.4m last year.

The charity’s total expenditure climbed 12.3 per cent to £312.8m. It said that its “strong financial performance” means that it can invest £115.2m in research to fight cardiovascular disease in the year to March 2013. This is up 27 per cent from the previous year’s research spend of £90.4m.

BHF’s total number of full-time equivalent staff employed in the year was up by 80 people, to 2,617. Of those, 2,186 are employed in the charity’s shops.

Simon Gillespie, chief executive at BHF, said: “It has been an incredible year for us.

“Amongst many successes, we have expanded our revolutionary programme of Centres of Research Excellence, committing £18m to funding of four existing centres for a further five years and investing £6m in two more centres at Cambridge and Glasgow.”

BHF is once again the largest chain according to our Charity Shops Survey 2014. To pre-order the survey, which will be published on 1 October, click here.

Additional reporting by Alice Sharman