SCOTLAND
Times of Malta
A Catholic priest has been jailed for 10 months in Scotland for stealing nearly £100,000 from his church.
Fr Graeme Bell, 41, admitted to being addicted to an online roulette game which led him to commit embezzlement and taking £96,000 from his parish, “Our Lady Star of the Sea” in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, Scotland.
He managed to return £25,000.
His lawyer, Gerard Brown, declared that his client would return the rest of the money with the help of his insurance and donations by his friends.
He insisted that his client was “a good man who had given his life to God, to the church and to his parishioners.” He also pointed out that “the priest’s anxiety and depression reached a stage where he was not behaving as a law-abiding individual.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.