A FORMER headmaster has been jailed for three months after admitting he obtained salary by deception and other offences. Alistair Beeston, who was deputy head of Nether Kellet Junior School, near Carnforth, claimed he had several education qualifications, including a Master's degree in education and diplomas in teaching maths, humanities and science. But a colleague became suspicious and it was later discovered that he only held a basic teaching certificate.

Preston Crown Court heard that his colleague, Mrs Sue Jobbins, first became concerned when they were presented with a restaurant bill for a school trip to Merseyside.

She had co-signed cheques to be paid in advance covering all their expenses. It emerged that by the time the cheques were presented to the bank they had been altered.

When youngsters left school at Nether Kellett each evening he would stay on to use the phone and operate a scam in which he posed as a solicitor, persuading car dealers to loan him top-of-the-range vehicles to test drive, saying that he was thinking of investing in a business fleet.

Mrs Jobbins is now running the village school and "doing a superb job" say the governors.

Jailing Beeston, of Croxteth, Liverpool, Judge Charles Mahon said : "This was a most serious breach of trust."

For several years until 1992 Beeston had been deputy head at St Peter's C of E School, Accrington.

Beeston - described by detectives as "a man of enormous conceit" - admitted obtaining £71,000 in salary by deception, forging three cheques and obtaining the services of a Renault dealer, who loaned him a Laguna, by deception.

A spokeswoman for the county council said: "Formerly we only used to require certificates from new entrants into the teaching profession. Under current agreements, we now require all successful applicants to present certificates of all education qualifications prior to appointments being confirmed."

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