A SENIOR figure at a charity which works to improve the lives of some of Suffolk’s most vulnerable people has admitted defrauding her employer of thousands of pounds.

Sharon Carr, 51, was one of West Suffolk Mind’s most senior employees and was most recently the charity’s deputy area manager.

Yesterday, she appeared at Bury St Edmunds Magistrates’s Court to face a single charge of defrauding her employer of more than �5,000 during a period of more than two years.

The prosecution follows a Suffolk police investigation into the charity’s finances.

Carr, of Raynsford Road, Great Whelnetham, near Bury, admitted the single charge of fraud by abuse of position.

The charge relates to the theft of �5,821.40 taken from the charity through “multiple transactions” which happened between March 2007 and November last year.

Carr held a number of roles at the charity including housing project manager and, more recently, deputy area manager.

Magistrates have adjourned the case for four weeks in order to consider which court she should be sentenced at.

Magistrates yesterday released Carr on bail to return to the court on May 6.

West Suffolk Mind, which is based in Long Brackland, Bury, works to improve the lives of people with mental health issues. It is affiliated to the national mental health charity Mind.

A spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecution Service said the penalty for fraud by abuse of position ranged from a community penalty up to a year in prison.

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