School bursar stole £500k to splurge on cars and holidays and called parents who complained the ‘Pritt Stick brigade’
A PRIMARY school bursar who stole £500,000 from school coffers blew her ill-gotten gains on cars and five-star holidays.
Debbie Poole, 63, raided funds collected from cake sales and raffles at her school to feed her greed.
But when parents at Hinchley Wood Primary School in Esher, Surrey, questioned her antics – she blasted them as the “Pritt Stick Brigade”.
Kingston Crown Court heard how over seven years Poole siphoned off £490,000 from an account set up to run after-school and breakfast clubs.
The court heard how Poole would be handed cash by parents at fundraisers and clubs – some costing £18 a day – as she managed their finances.
Cash in hand, she would bank it into the school account and then transfer it to her own.
She even wrote school cheques to herself during her extraordinary campaign that began in October 2011.
The shameless bursar – who worked at the school for 18 years – then authorised her own pay rise to over £80,000 by forging the head teacher’s signature.
The gross salary is far higher than most primary school heads.
Poole sparked suspicion when she began turning up to work in a string of expensive cars that she parked next to the “old banger” driven by Fiona Collins, the head teacher.
One of the three swish motors included a pricey £29,000 Peugeot SUV.
During the wild spending spree, Poole and husband Gary, 67, cashed in on a ten-night stay at the exclusive Ikos Olivia resort in Thessaloniki, Greece.
They checked into a deluxe suite with a private pool during the August 2018 blowout, said to have cost £13,000.
Earlier that year they coughed up £7,000 for a week’s stay at a luxury cottage for 15 people in Shipston-on-Stour on the edge of the Cotswolds.
The pair went on to transfer nearly £70,000 to their two daughters.
One of them – whose partner was sent £37,000 by the couple – later put down a deposit on a house.
The couple also spent Christmas and New Year in Australia alongside city breaks in Venice and Amsterdam.
The shameless duo also visited posh shops and bought expensive clothing.
One mum-of-three at the school told MailOnline they spent years fundraising for the struggling establishment just so the kids could get better supplies.
FUNDS DISAPPEARING
But tens of thousands raised through her parent-teacher association efforts “seemed to simply disappear”.
They added: “It got to the stage where children were coming home crying because they hadn’t stuck things in their books because they had no glue.”
Poole lashed back at the parents’ complaints branding them the “Pritt Stick brigade”.
But she was busted after a whistle-blower came forward following “bullying and intimation” concerns at the school that saw head Mrs Collins suspended.
When auditors from Surrey County Council checked the schools accounts, they discovered Poole’s audacious scam.
They also found how the bursar had increased her contracted working weeks from 40 to 52-per-year
She was arrested by police at her home in nearby Surbiton in October 2018.
Poole was convicted of four charges of fraud at Kingston crown court.
Co-defendant Gary Poole was cleared of a money-laundering offence of acquiring criminal property.
Poole is due to be sentenced next month.