Colleen McCabe
Encyclopedia
Colleen McCabe is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 fraudster who spent £500,000 on herself from the budget of the school where she was the headteacher.

Early years

From 1974 to 1989 she was a religious sister
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...

 with the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul
Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul
The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul were founded on May 11, 1849, when the four founding Sisters of Charity, arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia from New York. They came in response to a request by then Halifax Archbishop William Walsh. By 1856 the order, in Halifax, was accepted as a...

. After 15 years she decided to become a teacher, and joined St John Rigby School where she was made headteacher in 1991.

Before her extravagant spending, she was praised as a headmistress for her strong discipline in the school and for improving the school's facilities. She made the school grant-maintained
Grant-maintained school
Grant-maintained schools were state schools in England and Wales between 1988 and 1998 that had opted out of local government control, being funded directly by a grant from central government...

 in 1995, thus allowing the head to have complete control over the school's budget having received the permission from the school's governor
School governors
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, school governors are members of a school's Governing Body. In state schools they have responsibility for raising school standards through their three key roles of setting strategic direction, ensuring accountability and acting as a critical friend...

s.

Spending

McCabe lavished money from the budget on clothes, shoes, jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...

, trips
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

, takeaway
Takeaway
Takeaway can refer to:* Take-out food* The Takeaway , an American public radio morning news show* Turnover * Turnover * Subtraction—an alternative name...

s and wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 for the governors' meetings, champagne receptions and three holidays to Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

.

This was achieved with cutbacks, including:
  • using her pupils and contract cleaners for cleaning
  • shutting down the school heaters
  • asking children to work with old textbook
    Textbook
    A textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...

    s and computer
    Computer
    A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

    s
  • sacking, or underpaying, teachers.

Punishment

McCabe was convicted of all eleven charges of theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

 and six charges of deception
Deception
Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, bad faith, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth . Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, and sleight of hand. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment...

. She was originally jailed for five years, but this was dropped to four years on appeal. She was later released after serving half of her sentence.

Television

She was portrayed in 2006 by Pauline Quirke
Pauline Quirke
Pauline Perpetua Quirke is a British actress. She is best known for her role as Sharon in the comedy series Birds of a Feather, alongside her lifelong friend and frequent acting partner Linda Robson...

 in the BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

docu-drama The Thieving Headmistress.

External links

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