A BOSS cheated an educational organisation for disabled children in East Lancashire out of £46,000.

Former manager of Brierfield-based Caring Today, Feeraz Begum, had gone from ‘children’s champion’ to someone parents felt had betrayed them, Preston Crown Court heard.

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Begum had siphoned off cash from Lancashire County Council and Caring Today – which offered respite care for children with disabilities – between April 2010 and March 2011.

But defence counsel Ahmed Nadim said his client had an ‘exemplary record of service’ before she became embroiled in a complex fraud, involving over-claiming for respite sessions, or charging when youngsters hadn’t even attended.

Begum, 45, of Reedley Road, Brierfield, had stood trial on wider allegations that she walked away with £146,000.

But after evidence was heard, she admitted to fresh charges of furnishing false information and fraud.

Prosecutor Gordon Hennell said Begum had set up Caring Today in 2002 as a self-help group, as her daughter had a genetic disorder.

And by December 2004, when the organisation became a charity, she was appointed its £25,000 a year manager.

She was successful in obtaining funding through the county council’s Aiming Higher programme. But in the meantime she established Homecare & Domiciliary Network, which provided sessions for the charity, but was also used as a vehicle by Begum to divert council cash.

The court heard that the county council became concerned that the data provided by Caring Today for respite care did not match their invoices.

Begum claimed the computer system had crashed, when she previously told county officials the hardware had been stolen in a break-in.

The charity folded last September.

Mr Hennell said: “The parents spoken to were universally disappointed and upset by the fact that their children’s names had been used without permission to claim for sessions that they did not attend.”

Judge Michael Leeming gave her a 23-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months.

Mr Nadim, defending, said that the charity had continued for at least another year after Begum’s offending had been uncovered.