Scamming Girl Guide sisters jailed after stealing £450k through charity gift aid racket

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Two sisters who ran Girl Guide groups and stole £450,000 from HMRC through a charity Gift Aid scam have been jailed.

Over a six-year period, Sara and Jean Barnbrook claimed reimbursements on fictitious donations, defrauding the public out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Sara Barnbrook, 54, falsely claimed over £482,000 in Gift Aid repayments, of which £446,000 were paid out, and her sister Jean Barnbrook, 51, assisted with the money laundering between 2013 and 2019, according to the Leeds Crown Court.

The court heard that the sisters subsequently spent the money on luxury goods, hotels, travel, clothing, house renovations, and loan repayments. On Monday, Sara Barnbrook was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to cheating the public revenue and Jean Barnbrook was jailed for 30 months after admitting to entering into a money laundering arrangement.

According to prosecutor Angus MacDonald, Jean and Sara Barnbrook operated one Brownies unit and two Girl Guide units in the Leeds areas of Crossgates and Manston at the time of the offence.

He told the court: "Sara Barnbrook used the units to commit fraud against HMRC by exploiting the Gift Aid scheme - an income tax relief available to charities registered in the UK. It allows charities to reclaim 25% of any payments made.

"Sara Barnbrook submitted fraudulent claims to HMRC, stating the three units had received £1.9 million in charitable donations over an eight-year period."

The court heard the donors named on the forms "had no knowledge their identities were being used in furtherance of fraud".

The fraud, according to Mr. MacDonald, was so brazen that certain reimbursements were claimed after the relevant Girl Guide units had shut down. The money was either moved to the sisters' personal accounts or taken out in cash once the reimbursements were received, the court heard.

HMRC launched a criminal inquiry after Jean Barnbrook phoned her bank in April 2019 to enquire about a Gift Aid payment she said was due to 1st Manston Guides, a unit that had been shut down for 18 months.

"The prosecution say that call is clear evidence Jean Barnbrook was aware of the fraud being committed by her sister," Mr MacDonald said.

He told the court that, during the investigation, Sara Barnbrook forwarded a letter to HMRC from someone called "Louise" taking responsibility for the Gift Aid claims. Investigators found that "Louise" was fictitious and the letter came from Jean Barnbrook's computer.

Mr MacDonald said: "That letter was a last desperate attempt by these defendants to divert attention away from their offending."

When Sara Barnbrook was arrested she said: "Jean had nothing to do with it," the court heard. Anastasis Tasou, defending Sara Barnbrook, said she was a woman who "has never been in trouble for anything before" and "is now facing the prospect of an immediate custodial term".

He told the court: "Thirty years of devoted and voluntary service to the Girl Guides should not be completely undermined by this fraud which began in 2013 and did go on for some considerable time - six years.

"The fraud was born very shortly after the death of Ms Barnbrook's mother and started off more as a desire to bring her standard of living up to a standard of living which most of us take for granted. She can't explain adequately why it spiralled out of control."

Mr Tasou said Sara Barnbrook had had "a disadvantaged childhood and a disadvantaged adulthood" and still maintained that a lot of the money was actually spent on the Girl Guides.

Glenn Parsons, defending Jean Barnbrook, said she was "absolutely dependent on her sister", who had "substantially driven" the fraud.

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar told the defendants: "This was a fraud against the public purse and when people such as you commit these offences, they commit those offences out of greed.

"The perception seems to be that it is a victimless crime, but let me tell you, it is not a victimless crime - the victims are not just the state, but every taxpayer who contributes to the Exchequer."

Tim Atkins, operational lead, of the HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service, said: "These sisters stole money that was supposed to support genuine charities and they used it to fund a lifestyle they could not legitimately afford.

"They used their position of trust to forge claims, and I hope these sentences serve as a warning to others that we can and do investigate abuse of the Gift Aid system."

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