SOLIHULL MP Julian Knight has called upon the Attorney General to review the sentence of former Birmingham Dogs Home boss and his ex-partner.
Simon Price, former Chief Executive at the Catherine-De-Barnes based charity was jailed for five years after admitting embezzling almost £1 million pounds from the charity between 2012 and 2016.
He was arrested on a flight back from Barcelona and in police interview admitted stealing more than £650,000 − money donated by members of the public for animal welfare − and squandering it through online gambling.
Alayna Price − previously the charity’s Commercial Manager and Head of Fundraising − was given a two year jail term suspended for two years for her part in the fraud.
Julian has called for the case to be reviewed under the Government’s Unduly Lenient Sentences scheme, which allows the Attorney General to take action if a sentence fails to properly reflect public concern about a case.
In his letter Mr Knight wrote about both the scale and sustained nature of the crime and the future harm it may have done to a worthy charity by undermining public confidence,
Julian Knight said: “Simon and Alayna Price abused their positions to defraud not only a worth charity, but everybody who donated to it in good faith.
“In doing so they may have done long-term damage to an important local charity.
“Fraud often has an enormous human cost which can get overlooked by focusing solely on the money involved.
“The Unduly Lenient Sentences scheme offers the Government a valuable opportunity to step in where the courts have failed to properly punish fraudsters such as the Prices, and I hope that the Attorney General will seize this opportunity to set a clear example of how such cases should be treated.”
Last month Julian spoke in a special Westminster debate about the scheme, and specifically warned that the courts were struggling to hand down appropriate sentences for fraud cases.
