Originally Posted by
Rigga
I thought he resigned some while ago - and ensured his pension was paid...
Different case, but I suspect they both wondered where it all went wrong as the cell doors slammed shut in their new accommodation. First nights in somewhere not very nice until they are assessed.
Major General Nick Welch jailed over £50,000 army fraud
Larisa Brown, Defence Editor
Friday March 26 2021, 4.20pm, The Times
Nick Welch is the highest-ranking officer to face a court martial in more than 200 years
BEN GURR FOR THE TIMES
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SaveThe highest-ranking officer to face a court martial in more than 200 years has been jailed for 21 months after he defrauded the army out of nearly £50,000 in private school fees.
Major General Nick Welch, 57, who was awarded an OBE, was also ordered to repay the money and was retrospectively dismissed from the army, having already left in 2018.
Sentencing him today, a judge said that due to his rank he must be imprisoned to help preserve discipline and morale in the military and that “the higher you rank, the more important it is that you uphold the values and standards of the army”.
After leaving the army in 2018, Welch got a job as the chief operating officer at Arts University Bournemouth. The university said in a statement after his jail sentence that he had left his position with “immediate effect”.
The four-week trial at Bulford Military Court in Wiltshire heard how Welch abused the continuity of education allowance (CEA) to send two of his children to boarding schools in Dorset until he was reported by a colonel neighbour.
Welch, who was assistant chief of the general staff based at the Ministry of Defence's headquarters in London, had claimed he couldn’t afford the school fees, even on his salary of £120,000 a year.
Meanwhile, his wife Charlotte claimed the colonel who reported them must have done so as he was “daunted” by her husband's rank. The court heard the stress of the investigation would cost him his civilian job.
At the sentencing hearing, Welch and his wife remained stony-faced as they sat side by side. Alan Large, the judge advocate general, said Welch “knew from the outset” that he was not entitled to the allowance.
Earlier in the hearing, Sarah Clarke QC, the prosecutor, had said Welch's offence was especially serious because “the higher the rank the greater the degree of culpability”.
She added that because Welch was in a position of “trust, power and responsibility” and committed the fraud over a “sustained period of time” of about 15 months, it raised the seriousness of the fraud.
Throughout this period, she said Welch, who had a glittering career, had “failed to respond to warnings and change his behaviour”.
Sarah Jones QC, who was defending Welch, said it was the “pride of his life” to be an officer in the British Army and described the father of three as “an officer of outstanding ability who did the job he had a vocation to do”.
She said his family could “feel things shattering” because of his conviction, that his children were “distressed” as his wife “tries to put a brave face on”.
Welch denied the single count of fraud during the trial but Jones expressed his regret: “He had not taken sufficient care ... that awareness is real and sincere. He really does know, all of this is his fault.”
Jones argued that the drawn-out nature of the proceedings have had a serious effect on Welch’s family and should be taken into consideration when sentencing.
The four-week trial found Welch had lied to the army by saying they were living in military quarters in London when they in fact spent most of their time at their £800,000 Dorset home, breaching allowance rules.
He was convicted of swindling £49,212 in education allowance over a period of 15 months.
The trial heard he “deliberately manipulated the numbers” to mislead military police about how much time his wife had spent in London from December 2015 to February 2017. Welch is now expected to be transferred to a military corrective training unit before being moved to a civilian prison.
To conform to the allowance rules, Mrs Welch, a 54-year-old freelance consultant, could spend only 90 days away from the London address in a year.
They used the money to send their children to the £37,000-a-year Clayesmore School and £22,500-a-year Hanford School, both in Dorset.
Lieutenant General Sir John Murray was court martialled in 1815 trial two years after the shambolic siege of Tarragona in southern Spain, during the Duke of Wellington's Peninsula campaign, which ended his distinguished military career.
He was found guilty of abandoning his guns without due cause and admonished by the court but was not jailed.
An AUB spokesperson said: “Following a guilty verdict in court proceedings against Nick Welch that predate his employment at Arts University Bournemouth, the university can confirm that Mr Welch has left his role as AUB Chief Operating Officer with immediate effect.”
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