Thieving teacher dodges jail after stealing from pupils

A teacher who stole money collected from children for art materials and the school netball club dodged a jail sentence today.

Jennifer Ferguson, a social sciences teacher at one of Scotland's best-performing state schools, raided desks and drawers to fund a bottle-a-day vodka habit.

She also stole from a colleague's purse, and from another teacher whose class she was taking.

Ferguson, 35, was sentenced to 300 hours of unpaid work and ordered to repay all the money she had taken.

Sheriff Wyllie Robertson told her: "That's the maximum number of hours I can impose and that's a mark of how close you have come to custody."

She was also placed under social work supervision for two years.

Sheriff Robertson told her: "These were serious offences aggravated by the professional nature of your employment and the breach of trust involved in stealing funds earmarked for children and from your colleagues."

Stirling Sheriff Court heard that a series of petty thefts had been taking place at 950-pupil Balfron High School in West Stirlingshire.

Then in June 2015, Ferguson was caught on CCTV going into the school over the weekend and leaving again.

Officials investigated and found money was found missing from a colleague's desk.

Trays and folders had been moved around to get at the cash underneath.

Police were called in, and Ferguson was arrested on the Monday morning outside the Spar supermarket in Balfron, before she could re-enter the school.

Local bobby PC Steven Graham, 43, said it had been decided to detain Ferguson outside the school "to save her embarrassment".

She was placed in a police van, and taken "upset and tearful" to Greenock Police Station in Renfrewshire.

PC Graham said: "She went from initially denying the allegations to admitting them."

Ferguson said she was "embarrassed and disgusted"at what she had done.

The court heard she was on her way to teach pupils when she was stopped, and said she had drunk a bottle of vodka in the last 24 hours.

Prosecutor Gail Russell said the thefts included £20 that Ferguson pilfered from a colleague's purse which she had left on shelves behind her classroom desk on an in-service day when no children were in the school; another £20 that the same fellow teacher had brought in to contribute to a staff night out; £20 that Ferguson took from a coat while she was covering a colleague's class; £8 collected from children for art materials; and £67 that belonged to the school netball club.

In total the money taken amounted to £275.

Ferguson, of Hardgate, West Dunbartonshire, pleaded guilty last month to four charges of stealing the money from various rooms at Balfron High School between 24th October 2014 and June 15th 2015.

Sentence was deferred until today for reports.

Ferguson's solicitor, Paul Reid, said the General Teaching Council for Scotland had begun moves to strike her off, and because of the nature of her crimes she would never be allowed to teach again and she was now unemployed.

He said she had suffered "considerable remorse and public shame".

He said Ferguson had found difficulty in coping with the stress of her daily life and unhappy marriage, and sought solace in alcohol.

He said: "If she spent the housekeeping money on alcohol she was terrified to go back to her controlling husband and explain."

Sheriff Robertson told Ferguson there were "a number of mitigating factors".

He said: "These include the fact that you were, and had been for some time, suffering from post-natal depression and metal health issues including alcohol addiction as well as difficult domestic circumstances.

"I am told that you are making progress with many of these issues, and one of your former colleagues has thought sufficiently highly of you to write, unbidden, to the court in your support, having been concerned and astonished to read of this case in the Press."

A spokeswoman for Stirling Council, the education authority which controls Balfron High School, said: "This individual is no longer an employee of Stirling Council."