Woman who stole £95,000 from charities given three months to pay it back

A woman who stole more than £85,000 from a cancer charity set up in memory of her best friend’s daughter, who died from leukaemia, has been given three months to pay all of it back.

Lawyers have worked out a deal to ensure charities that lost more than £95,000 to Lindsay MacCallum will get back every penny, a court heard on Wednesday.

MacCallum, who defrauded the cancer charity Rainbow Valley of £85,978 and embezzled £9,505 from the Anthony Nolan Trust, was jailed in October for three years.

The 61-year-old has already repaid £25,000 to Rainbow Valley.

It had been feared that if a criminal confiscation order were granted, the rest of the money she was due to repay would have been diverted straight into Treasury funds.

Lindsay MacCallum, right, stole from the charity set up in memory of Angela MacVicar's daughter. — Lindsay MacCallum, right, stole from the charity set up in memory of Angela MacVicar’s daughter. Supplied

At Falkirk Sheriff Court, fiscal Asif Rashid, for the Crown, said it had been agreed with MacCallum’s lawyers that confiscation proceedings should be paused to give her until March to repay the remaining outstanding funds – £60,000 to Rainbow Valley and £9,505 to the Anthony Nolan Trust.

Advocate Sarah Loosemore said MacCallum, who was not present in court, had undertaken to do so, and required three months to liquidate the funds.

She said: “The best place for this money is for it to go back to the charities.”

Mr Rashid said that if the money was repaid by March 2025, the Crown undertook that court action under the Proceeds of Crime Act would be withdrawn.

MacCallum was ordered to be brought from prison for a final court hearing on March 5, 2025.

Johanna MacVicar was 16 when she was diagnosed. Her mum said gathering research, identifying options and seeking out the genuine people, therapies and support was a daunting task.Rainbow Valley

She pled guilty to stealing £85,000 from the Rainbow Valley cancer foundation, set up in memory of her best friend’s daughter, and also taking money from the Anthony Nolan Trust stem cell charity.

Mother-of-two MacCallum, of Aberfoyle, Perthshire, was told in October by her sentencing sheriff Maryam Labaki that she had “systematically and deliberately” perpetrated “calculating” frauds on the third sector organisations, and “betrayed” cancer victims.

The court heard that despite being in no financial difficulty, she forged the signatures of Rainbow Valley staff and rerouted cash from fundraising accounts for her own use between 2011 and 2021.

She siphoned £50,000 into her own bank accounts, £5,045 into a joint account with her husband Fraser, and £1,670 into an account for grown-up children Craig and Eilidh.

She also spent £21,056 of charity money on a credit card and £4,210 on products from Next.

MacCallum worked as a fundraising manager for the Anthony Nolan Trust from 1995 to 2012 before she left to set up Rainbow Valley with best friend Angela MacVicar.

In 2005, Mrs MacVicar lost her daughter Johanna to leukaemia at 27 years old and the foundation was established in her honour.

The pair worked together for ten years before a fall-out in 2022.

Mrs MacVicar stumbled upon MacCallum’s decade of deceit after discovering discrepancies in an account set up for a fundraising ball.

Mrs MacVicar said she was “totally bereft” when she found out what she had done.

She said: “She was my best friend, and I trusted her implicitly, as did everybody.

“She fooled everybody.”

Outside court on Wednesday, Mrs MacVicar said she was pleased a settlement had been reached.

“The court has done us justice,” she said.