A former secondary school principal who is on trial on charges of theft and false accounting in relation to the running of the school canteen, has said that it never occurred to him to count the money that was being given to him from it.
Frank Chambers of Carnacregg, Moylough, Co Galway, pleaded not guilty to a total of 34 charges relating to the canteen at Roscommon Community College when his trial began last Tuesday.
On Friday last, Judge Francis Comerford directed the jury to find him not guilty on the first seven charges which relate to false accounting, because the judge said there is no basis on which they could bring in a conviction on those charges. One charge of false accounting and 26 charges of theft remain before the jury.
Under cross examination by prosecuting barrister Cathal Ó Braonáin today, Mr Chambers agreed that the takings of the canteen were owned by Galway Roscommon ETB but said he was never made fully aware of that.
He also agreed that the way the canteen finances were operated meant that the VEC or ETB had no oversight of his cash spending.
Asked if he felt that he should have unilateral control of "public funds", Mr Chambers said that while he was responsible, they were doing it as a whole school to get the best for the school and get the best value for money, "we were on a shoestring, we were only getting funded on the numbers from last year".
He has told the court that he used the cash to pay for things needed by the school including payments for referees, items for the school musical and payment for buses and use of an astro-turf.
Mr Chambers said he didn't feel he was doing anything wrong. He told the court that he didn’t know what was being charged in the canteen and it never occurred to him to count the money he was given from it. He said he put the cash in the safe and took it out as it was needed.
When an investigation was undertaken into the canteen Mr Chambers said that he came up with an estimated income of €100-200 a week by going through receipts that he had.
Mr Ó Braonáin said that on the basis of 33 weeks in a school year, the canteen would have taken in between €3,300-3,600 in a year based on Mr Chambers calculations but if the evidence given by Patricia Byrne to the court is correct then it would have taken in between €26,400-33,000 in a year.
Mr Chambers agreed there was a pretty big difference between the two figures. Ms Byrne ran the canteen and has told the court that it was taking in between €800-1,000 a week. He said he didn’t remember looking at the figures in Ms Byrne’s book which he signed when she gave him the money.
Asked by Mr Ó Braonáin why he closed the canteen in 2017, he said it was because he had been at an ETB finance sub-committee meeting and because Marie Bance, the school secretary, had come to him with concerns but said he couldn’t actually remember what she had said to him.
His evidence to the court on Friday was that he had come away from the sub-committee meeting "feeling a bit cold and a bit vulnerable and wondering was I doing something wrong".
Mr Ó Braonáin put it to him that he had told the investigation that the canteen had become too big and there were no structures in place. Mr. Chambers said he didn’t remember exactly what he said.
He told the court that they didn’t close the canteen, they just stopped charging pupils.
Questioned on his evidence that he only stopped lodging money after the transition from VEC to ETB in June 2013, Mr Chambers said he could not explain why there was no money lodged to the VEC for the school year 2011-2012.
Asked how much money he had spent from the canteen fund in the school year 2016-2017, Mr Chambers said he didn’t know.
Mr Ó Braonáin said the total spend was €35,445.23 and Mr Chambers said some of that money could have been for earlier years. He said a lot of receipts were lost during the renovations in the school in 2016. Anything that was put in the safe was spent out of the safe, "I’ve never stolen a penny in my life," he said.
Three teachers who worked with Mr Chambers gave evidence that he would give them cash from the safe for various things related to the school. Former teacher at the school Cathal McHugh said he would go to the principal’s office, and he would give him money to pay for referees for GAA and soccer matches and to pay for astro-turf hire.
Art teacher Gillian Gannon said anytime she needed cash, which would be for a lot of things, she would be handed it by Mr Chambers, and she would go and buy what she required for things like the creative aspects of the school open day and the school musical.
She said the money would come from the safe and she presumed it was petty cash. She said Mr Chambers was an outstanding principal and the welfare of the children was always his biggest concern.
French teacher Olivia Farrell told the court that if she made bookings, she would give Mr Chambers a receipt and he would reimburse her with cash and any money collected for outings would be put in his safe and given back to her when it was needed.
She described Mr Chambers as an exceptional leader and said staff morale was very high but now it’s different, she said, and there is a divide in the staff room but, for the most part, they don’t discuss it.
The trial continues tomorrow.
