A man who orchestrated a scheme of bogus charity collections has been sentenced to 13 months prison.

Forty-eight-year-old Dagenham man Roy Bardy (pictured) plead guilty to two counts of fraud by false representation at Blackfriars Crown Court, and was sentenced yesterday.

Bardy had recruited teams of volunteers and employees to collect cash for ‘local charities’ at train stations from Merseyside to Kent. Police found evidence of 81 incidents in which Bardy’s teams had either worked or planned to work for two charities.

His teams were able to get authorisation and identification to collect cash at stations around England after Bardy struck up conversations with local charities, offering to conduct collections on their behalf. While some of the money collected by Bardy’s teams did end up with charity, the Essex man admitted to having pocketed donations intended for good causes. The full value of his fraud is not known.

British Transport Police arrested Bardy in November 2010, after suspicious commuters alerted the authorities to the behaviour of the collectors.

In sentencing Bardy, Judge Henry Blacksell said: “You are a manipulator, and a dishonest man.”

Detective Constable Mike Ganly spoke after sentencing: “This is a sad case that has seen commuters’ kind generosity and donations to charities unknowingly taken by Bardy and pocketed himself,” said Ganly. “He is a callous thief and his actions, diverting money from charities which rely on donations to fund their good work, has resulted in those good causes suffering financial losses.”
 
Fundraising Standards Board chief executive, Alistair McLean, said that charity fraud is deeply concerning, but that the  incidents such have an “even greater cost of damaging public trust and future charitable giving”.