Charity boss CV fraudster must pay back 15 per cent of salary, Supreme Court says
A charity chief executive should be forced to repay almost £100,000 of his more than £640,000 annual salary following the discovery he lied on his CV to get the job, the Supreme Court has said.
The verdict saw the Supreme Court take a “middle way” approach in ruling that former St Margaret’s Hospice chief executive Jon Andrewes should pay back just a portion of his £643,603 annual salary – equivalent to 15 per cent.
The court ruled it would be “proportionate” to seize a sum £96,373.24 from Andrewes after he was jailed for two years in 2017 for lying about his education and work experience to win multiple jobs on the boards of NHS trusts and charities.
The court heard Andrewes lied about completing a PhD in Management and Ethics at Portsmouth University and misled interviewers about having previously worked in an array of high-flying jobs whilst applying for the top position in 2004.
After winning the job as head of the Taunton hospice, Andrewes used his fake CV to secure non-executive positions on the boards of the Torbay NHS Care Trust and the Royal Cornwall NHS Hospital Trust.
The exec was fired from his job in 2015 after spending more than a decade at the top of the registered charity before the truth about his academic qualifications and employment history was revealed.
Andrewes was later jailed for two years in 2017 after pleading guilty to one count under the Theft Act and a further two counts of fraud, over the lies that saw him take up his position as head of St Margaret’s Hospice alongside non-executive positions on two NHS trusts.
At the time, the Crown Court signed an order to confiscate Andrewes’ full net earnings. The Court of Appeals later overturned the Crown Court order in saying none of his salary should be confiscated, after Andrewe’s appealed the Crown Court’s decision.
However, the Supreme Court today overturned the Court of Appeals ruling in deciding the executive should be forced to pay back just a portion of his annual salary after the court heard internal reviews of his work gave “glowing” accounts of his skills in all areas.