Charity worker stole £100,000

Suspended sentence for shamed staffer

A FORMER charity worker who stole more than £100,000 from a mental health organisation was given a suspended jail sentence yesterday.

Trevor William Mckirgan siphoned a total of £102,035 from Inspire Wellbeing over a five-year period while working as its finance business partner.

Belfast Crown Court heard the father of two has paid back all the money he stole and the services provided by the charity did not suffer as a result of his actions.

Mckirgan, from Coleraine, Co Derry, appeared at a remote hearing via a videolink with his solicitor’s office, where he was handed an 18-month sentence, suspended for three years.

He admitted stealing the money from his employers over a period from June 2013 to October 2018 while employed as the finance business partner. Mckirgan began working at the charity in 2009. His offending emerged after he left in 2018 and his successor discovered an irregularity in the financial records.

They showed a payment had been made to a counsellor who had ceased working for the charity two years previously. Police were informed and an investigation launched.

This inquiry revealed Mckirgan had been siphoning money from the charity by diverting payments made out to self-employed counsellors into his own bank account.

Saying he accepted the accused was “thoroughly ashamed of his offending behaviour, deceit and lies”, Judge Stephen Fowler spoke of Mckirgan’s fall from grace, loss of reputation and the impact this has had on him and his family.

When asked, “Do you understand the ramifications of a suspended sentence?”, Mckirgan replied: “I do, Your Honour.”