Woman who stole from best friend’s charity must pay in cash

A woman who stole £86,000 from a charity set up in memory of her best friend’s daughter has been given three months to repay the money.

Lindsay McCallum, 61, ditched it over the course of a decade after starting the charity Rainbow Valley with former friend Angela McVicar.

He also embezzled £9,505 from the Anthony Nolan Trust – a stem cell donation charity.

McCallum, who was jailed for three years in October, has already repaid the £25,000 he stole from his former friend.

Mrs McVicar said outside court that she was pleased the settlement had been reached, adding: “The court has given us justice.”

It was feared that if criminal confiscation had been ordered, the remaining money would have gone into the treasury to repay McCallum.

Falkirk Sheriff Court was told it had been agreed with McCallum’s lawyers that confiscation proceedings should be put on hold until March to allow him to repay the remaining money owed – £60,000 to Rainbow Valley and £9,505 to the Anthony Nolan Trust. Can be given a chance.

Advocate Sarah Loosemore said McCallum, who was not present in court, had undertaken to do so and simply needed three months to clear the funds.

She said: “The best place for this money is to send it back to charity.”

Mr Rashid said if the money was repaid by March 2025, the court action would be dropped by the Crown under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

A court previously heard that McCallum, of Aberfoyle, Perthshire, forged the signatures of charity staff and redirected cash from fundraising accounts for her own use between 2011 and 2021.

She was told by a sheriff that she had “systematically and deliberately” committed “calculated” fraud on third sector organisations, and had “defrauded” cancer victims.

McCallum worked as fundraising manager for the Anthony Nolan Trust from 1995 to 2012 before leaving to set up Rainbow Valley with Mrs McVicar.

In 2005, Mrs. McVicar lost her 27-year-old daughter Johanna to leukemia and the foundation was established in her honour.

The pair worked together for 10 years before breaking up in 2022.

Mrs. McVicar later discovered discrepancies in the account set up for fundraising.

In total McCallum took £85,978 from Rainbow Valley.

The court heard McCallum was made Rainbow Valley’s project development manager and was given a charity credit card to use a Friends of Rainbow Valley bank account in 2014.

But the account remained in use and until August 2022, after a disagreement between friends, transactions from this account were questioned.

McCallum – a former Royal Navy servicewoman – pleaded guilty to two fraud charges totaling £95,483.

Additional reporting by Central Scotland News Agency