A charity trustee has been jailed for 18 months after using charity funds to pay for dental treatment and holidays.

The Charity Commission reported the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Fund to the police after a routine investigation following payments from a commercial clothing company revealed ”serious concerns about the financial management of the charity”. It also found trustees had used the names of relatives without their knowledge.

In October 2014, two of the charity’s trustees pleaded guilty to criminal offences. Martin Lawley, who had effectively been running the charity, admitted two counts of fraud by abuse of position and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. His wife Angela admitted aiding and abetting fraud by abuse of position and received a suspended sentence.

According to the BBC, money was spent on a holiday to America. During an interview with police last year Lawley was reported as saying: "I thought 'I'm nearly 60, I might as well have some fun before it's all over'."

Further checks by the Commission into the charity’s bank accounts revealed that payments totalling £1,800 had been made to one of the trustees, and other listed expenditure, totalling nearly £7,600, did not appear to be in the “furtherance of the charity’s objectives”. These included payments for dental treatment and to a travel agency, and £7,200 which was withdrawn in cash from the charity’s account.

The Commission also found Lawley had used names of relatives as trustees without their knowledge.

Once an operational compliance case was opened into the charity, the Commission arranged to meet with the trustees on three separate occasions, with these meetings being cancelled at the last minute on each occasion.

A trustee told the Commission that cash withdrawals had been used to buy “toys and games from market stalls”, which had then been placed in storage and were to be distributed to various children’s hospitals. However, the trustee explained that these items, along with the charity’s invoices and receipts, had been “ruined as a result of severe flooding in the area”, and subsequently disposed of.

Checks by the Commission established that “a little flooding had occurred at the storage facility”, and that the toys, which were of low value, had been disposed of. However, the Commission said it “could not conclude that the charity records had also been damaged by the flooding”.

The Commission said it became clear that one trustee had been operating the charity. It also discovered that he had used the names of relatives as other trustees without their knowledge and that they had not signed bank mandates, accounts or trustee declaration forms.

After he was confronted by the Commission, the trustee made a payment of £14,000 to the charity and the Commission reported their suspicions of criminal activity to the police in March 2013. Two months later the trustee again withdrew the £14,000 from the charity’s account.

The Commission went on to advise the clothing collection company to cut its ties with the charity. The company, which were unaware of any wrongdoing, agreed to distribute remaining funds to charities with similar objectives.

The Commission also removed the charity, which had only been registered since March 2011, from the register as it was no longer operating.

The Commission said it had been proactively engaging with trustees of newly registered charities that have entered into agreements with commercial clothing companies, as its “case work has shown that issues with such contracts often arise because trustees are not properly monitoring and managing the partnership and/or do not have correct policies and procedures in place”.