BA stewardess 'stole £100,000' given to charity by passengers

Gillian Paterson, 36, who worked for BA for 10 years, passed herself off as a "champion" of Unicef and handed out envelopes among passengers to collect unwanted foreign currency to support the charity.

However, rather than handing the money over to the charity, Paterson kept the cash for herself.

She was exposed when she left her car to be cleaned at Gatwick airport and a valet found empty envelopes, meant to contain cash for the charity, in the boot.

A BA source claimed Paterson, of Angmering, West Sussex, stole up to £100,000 over a 13-month campaign, Isleworth crown court was told, but the recorder Angela Morris said: "The court will never know how much money was taken because the money was donated anonymously."

Paterson, who lives in a £220,000 house she inherited from her father, promoted Unicef during flights with a short film.

Ms Morris said Paterson had taken advantage of lax BA monitoring to steal the cash. "To describe these offences as spiteful is an understatement. To describe them as despicable is only fair," the recorder said.

"The Unicef Change For Good Cause collection was meant to improve the quality of life for children. Given you are a lady who has enjoyed a mortgage-free house, a car, a good job and savings in the bank, all things these children can only dream about, it makes your offending much worse.

"It's a total breach of trust. This was a breach of trust purported by you on three separate groups of people."

Ms Morris said Paterson had abused the trust of BA, its passengers and Unicef. She added: "You put yourself forward as a champion for Unicef some five years before these offences came to light so if anyone knew what would be expected of you, you did."

The court heard how passengers would be asked to donate the cash on flights, putting their money into an envelope. The envelopes were then collected and put into a single parcel, supposed to go to Unicef. Alison Barker, prosecuting, said: "These envelopes would be put in a bag and it would be sealed and deposited at the airline crew building. There was no adding up. What was recorded was the depositing of the bag. This lady admits she failed to deposit one of the bags in November last year. But she had done this on a previous occasion a year earlier."

Paterson was caught when she "foolishly and carelessly" sent her car to be valeted at Gatwick while she went on holiday.

Ms Barker said: "In the boot of her car were found quite a number of these charity envelopes with the money missing.

"She had said she did not want the boot cleaned because there were lots of bits and pieces and loose change in there. She had a lot of coins in there and she knew it.

"Work started on the car on 5 December and when the man came to the back seats he was aware of dozens of coins and torn envelopes. He saw they were charity envelopes and told his supervisor."

Rizwan Ashiq, in mitigation for Paterson, said she resigned from her job before being sacked and would find it very difficult to get another job.

Paterson, who was found guilty in October, was given a 50-week sentence that the recorder "very reluctantly" suspended for two years. She was fined £13,000 - £1,000 for each month she offended - and she was also ordered to pay £1,300 costs and do 200 hours of unpaid work.