By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 15:45, Wednesday, 14 July 2010

The former supplies supervisor at RAF Spadeadam has been sent to prison for defrauding the Ministry of Defence (MoD) out of more than £7,000.

Paul Herriman, of Brampton: Pleaded guilty to 13 charges of false accounting and was jailed for 40 weeks and ordered to pay £7,133 compensation to the Ministry of Defence

Paul Mark Herriman, a 40-year-old civilian worker at the airbase near Brampton, used his official Government Procurement Card (GPC) to buy furniture, computers, electronic games and other equipment which he took home with him.

He then covered what he had done by falsifying paperwork to inflate the true cost of legitimate expenditure.

At Carlisle Crown Court, Herriman, of Longtown Road, Brampton, pleaded guilty to 13 charges of false accounting.

He was jailed for 40 weeks and ordered to pay £7,133 compensation to the MoD.

RAF corporal Darren Mark Rowe, 40, of Longthwaite Road, Wigton, pleaded guilty to five charges of false accounting relating to £238-worth of illegitimate spending.

He also admitted stealing a laptop computer and a TV and DVD player, both of which he took home after Herriman had bought them with RAF money.

He was given an eight-week prison sentence, suspended for a year, ordered to do 200 hours unpaid community work and told to pay the MoD £238 compensation.

Prosecuting counsel Rob Dudley told the court the two men were among the few at RAF Spadeadam to be issued with the GPCs necessary to charge purchases to the MoD account.

Herriman, as head of the department, was responsible for authorising the use of all GPCs on the base and was considered by his bosses to be the most efficient user of the cards there.

But in February 2009 he fell under suspicion after failing to submit his monthly GPC returns for six months.

When he eventually submitted his claims a number of discrepancies were found and both he and Rowe had their cards cancelled, Mr Dudley said.

It was then found that he had bought more than £7,000-worth of equipment for himself – including a £1,500 three piece suite, a mesh-backed armchair, some computer equipment, a DVD recorder and a photo printer.

Rowe’s returns showed that he had misused his card to buy a DVD player, torches, mugs and a kite.

He also took home a TV and DVD player after Herriman told him they would not be missed, Mr Dudley said.

The court heard that neither man had been in trouble before – a fact that Judge Barbara Forrester said she took into account when passing sentence.

In mitigation, defence barrister Alison Whalley said Herriman, a father-of-two, had learned his lesson and would never do anything similar again.

He was now unemployed and living on £60-a-week Jobseekers’ Allowance while looking for farm work.

“He knows it will be very difficult to gain a position of trust again,” she said.

Rowe’s barrister Brendan Burke said the former corporal was a “socially inhibited” man thanks to the way he had been bullied at school.

As a result, he said, Herriman had been the first friend he had ever had, so he just went along with what he was doing even though it was wrong.

First published at 11:24, Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk