Racial Equality Bosses Fleeced Charity

A director and a treasurer of a taxpayer-funded racial equality charity plotted together to fleece a local authority out of £47,910 by falsely billing for a string of diversity-related services.

Mukham Bajwa, 68, of Park Crescent, Erith, a £46,000 a year director of the Greenwich Council for Racial Equality (GCRE) and Hardev Dhillon, 76, of Woolwich Common, a serving magistrate during the scam, forged invoices and received a total of sixty-four cheques.

Both pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court to conspiring to defraud the London Borough of Greenwich between October 7, 2004 and June 12, 2008.

Today they each received twelve months imprisonment, suspended for two years, and were ordered to pay £6,000 costs each to the Royal Borough of Greenwich and £1,000 costs each to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Additionally they were each given a 150 day curfew order, prohibiting them from leaving home between 8pm and 6am.

Between 2005 and 2011 the GCRE - founded in 1968 - received £1.4m from the council, but the scandal forced its closure last year.

Cheques were paid into Dhillon (pic.top) and his wife's accounts and genuine companies and individuals were used to give a veneer of authenticity.

They created bogus invoices for interpreters and translators at an equality open day; racial equality and Human Rights Act training; conferences; focus group meetings and a dvd explaining the Indian game kabaddi.

All the losses have been repaid by the defendants, who tried to negotiate an immunity from prosecution in return, and the council financed the £27,300 costs of the investigation.

"These defendants were in a position of trust and these defendants had control of expenditure," said prosecutor Mr. Simon Sandford.

They resigned in 2009 and a subsequent audit revealed numerous financial discrepancies.

In May 2010 they were confronted by the GCRE. "The defendants made no admissions."

They eventually agreed to repay £36,887, conceding there were some discrepancies.

"The defendants attempted to make it a condition of the repayment that no legal action would be taken against them,' added Mr. Sandford.

"It had been discovered that they had created a large number of fraudulent invoices and the bogus invoices purported to be from genuine companies and individuals who had provided goods and services to the GCRE.

"The defendants signed and counter-signed a total of sixty-four cheques and they were written in favour of either Mr. Dhillon or his wife.

"No one other than these two defendants had to physically see the cheques and considerable efforts must have gone into the creation of these invoices.

"They also used genuine companies and individuals to give the invoices a veneer of authority.

"The invoices, stamps and cashbooks were all consistent with each other.

"Under the cover of racial equality the defendants invented bogus claims for events that did not take place such as the services of interpreters and translators for an open day.

"There was also a Bexley council race equality initiative for which invoices were produced for teacher and parent training in equality, race relations and the Human rights Act.

Non-existent conferences such as 'Raising Cash From The Rich' were invented by the pair to generate invoices.

"The impression they were keen to make was that they were working hard and providing a very good services," added Mr. Sandford.

They successfully made £2,200 from expenses generated by producing an instructional dvd explaining the rules of popular Indian contact sport kabaddi, plus more money from a kabaddi contest at an anti-racism festival and hiring a hall for kabaddi training.

Further sums were paid by taxpayers for a 'facilitator' at a race focus group meeting.

"The invoices were professionally done, they look real," said the prosecutor.

Bajwa, (pic.bottom) who had been with the GCRE since 1983 and a director since 1990 was arrested on April 13, last year.

Dhillon, who stood for Socialist Labour at the last General Election, was arrested on March 15, this year and when questioned admitted producing fake invoices.

"He said they did this to put money into an account for an independent racial equality group because they believed government cuts would result in the closure of the GCRE."

No such bank account was ever opened.