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| Sir Alan outside Copland with David Cameron |
He was on
trial with others for allegedly misappropriating school funds from the school
to a total of £2.7 million. The six charges were for false accounting.
He had
originally pleaded not guilty. Observers suggest a plea bargain might have been struck whereby the charges of
conspiracy and money laundering were dropped for him to plead guilty to the
lesser charges.
Hank
Roberts, the original whistleblower, said:
Lesley Gouldbourne, Joint Brent Teachers Association Secretary, said:He has admitted to six charges of false accounting after years of claiming his innocence. Why has it taken four years to bring this to trial? It's a school not a multinational. He wasted thousands and thousands of pounds of tax payers money by maintaining this façade of innocence causing a lengthy and expensive Brent Council and 'Fraud Squad' investigation”.I was justified in my whistleblowing. Scrutiny and oversight of school finances has seriously been tightened up in Brent and to some extent around the country. The growth of academies and free schools, however, is only making the problem of adequate oversight worse.
In its coverage of the story the Kilburn Times LINK states:It has taken four long years but at last the truth has come out. Now he should pay back Brent the cost of the investigation and lose his knighthood.
William Clegg QC, defending, said it was agreed with the prosecution ‘that all monies paid to Sir Alan were honestly paid to him and honestly received by him'.Sir Alan will be sentenced tomorrow on the six false accounting charges to which he pleaded guilty.
Copland Community School recently failed its Ofsted inspection and an Interim Executive Board was appointed to replace the governing body. There have been two teachers' strikes over moves to force the school to become an academy.
