Shropshire Star

Fraudster must pay back £40,000 to Shropshire village hall committee

A fraudster must pay back almost £40,000 to a village hall committee – almost twice the amount she stole.

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Tracey Hills has also been told she will have to sell her holiday home in Lanzarote to pay back her debts to Halfway House and Wattlesborough Village Hall Committee.

Hills, 46, used her position as the committee's chairman to siphon the money out of accounts between 2005 and 2011.

She stole a total of £20,100 which she blew on gambling. But a Proceeds of Crime hearing at Shrewsbury Crown Court yesterday was told that due to inflation and the uplift of the economy she will have to repay £39,675.44.

Mr Robert Edwards, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said to be able to pay the bill Hills will have to sell the apartment.

He said: "The available amount of money can't be assessed at the current time. The amount will come from proceeds of the sale of an apartment. It's not possible to place a value on that property at the moment, but it is in the process of being sold. Once the sale has taken place we will know what the available amount will be."

Mr Edwards said even if the sale takes longer than the expected time period, the amount Hills will owe will not change. But he said there could be complications if the sale hasn't gone through by October 1.

"That date is the requirement of Spanish law," he said. "If it's not completed by then, then all deals would be off as Spanish law would come in and the property could be repossessed."

Hills was jailed for 16 months last year after admitting four counts of theft and two counts of false accounting.

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