Woman in her 60s jailed for defrauding charities out of £47,000 in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire

A woman has been jailed for more than two years for defrauding a number of charities across Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

60-year-old Parvinder Matharu set up a charity to support people who needed housing.

However, instead of using the fundraising money to support vulnerable people, she kept it for herself.

In over five years, Matharu stole £47,000.

Head of Thames Valley Police’s Central Fraud Unit, Detective Inspector Duncan Wynn, says: "Parvinder Matharu abused the trust placed in her to systematically defraud charities of a substantial amount of money purely for her personal gain.

"By doing this she left charities unable to provide critical funding for vulnerable people who were entitled to the charity funding that Matharu stole.

"Her offences were sophisticated and pre-meditated in nature, involving the setting up of fake applications and then providing false invoices to cover her tracks enabling her to commit the fraudulent activity over a sustained period of time.

"Wrongly, fraud is often seen as a victimless crime. In this case precious charity funds were stolen and left vulnerable persons at risk of harm and unable to get the support they needed."

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