Grimsby nursery boss sent to jail for eight months
A TRUSTED nursery boss who "systematically" stole more than £17,000 cash from parents has been jailed.
She regularly altered cash records to "cover up" the thefts and later cynically tried to put the blame on colleagues when the missing cash was finally discovered, a court heard.
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JAILED: Kelly Marley.
Kelly Marley, 31, of Niche Mews, off Taylors Avenue, Cleethorpes, denied two offences of theft from Little Stars Nursery, based at Grimsby Institute, but was convicted by a jury after a trial in December.
She had been working at the time as the nursery's deputy manager.
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Bernard Gateshill, prosecuting, told Grimsby Crown Court: "She was trusted to count the money and not to keep it for herself."
Recorder Felicity Davies told Marley: "Over the course of more than 15 months from June 2009, you systematically stole more than £17,000 of cash paid by parents of children at the nursery.
"You repeated your thefts on well over 120 separate occasions."
Marley covered up the theft by intercepting cash handed over by parents and omitting the transactions from records and receipts or by altering the arithmetic to reduce the correctly-entered figures and "pocket the balance".
Manager Tracey Bennett discovered the discrepancies after checking receipts on October 18, 2010, and failing to "get the figures to tally".
She found three receipts that had been written out but not entered on a daily cash record.
"That prompted a thorough check of accounting documents, which revealed the extent of the loss to the nursery," said Recorder Davies.
Marley had been doing the banking on every day that money had gone missing.
"The offending is aggravated by the breach of trust and by your castings of suspicion in a deliberate attempt to blame your colleagues, particularly Tracey Bennett," said Recorder Davies.
"This offending is too serious to justify any sentence other than immediate custody.
"It was sustained over a significant period of time and the blame that was cast over your colleagues aggravates the offending considerably."
Andrew Bailey, mitigating, said: "She still denies the matters. She has maintained her denials, but she accepts the jury's verdict and is dealing with it."
Marley had been in a management position of trust and had "thrown it all away".
It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for her to work in that field again.
"She had a career and she has lost it," said Mr Bailey.
Marley had resigned from her recent retail job. She had no previous convictions and had a 20-month-old son.
She was jailed for eight months.




26 Comments
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by xxx666xxx
Monday, February 04 2013, 8:50AM
“@narrowminded. Only thing i need is a job them my life will be pretty much how i want it. Funny how you stick your nose in and have ago about people sticking their noses in haha hypocrite”
by seadog
Monday, February 04 2013, 8:33AM
“more scum out of grimsby . ******* .”
by billyliar
Monday, February 04 2013, 7:20AM
“If any of you think she is innocent then it is your moral duty to convince her to appeal. Why not go a step further and formulate a campaign to support her appeal. On the other hand maybe Kelly is so accepting of the judgement because she knows something that you don't.”
by NarrowMinded
Sunday, February 03 2013, 10:59PM
“I spend my time commenting on things that have absolutely nothing to do with me. I do this because my life is so perfect! If I looked a little deeper I would find out that my wife/ husband is actually cheating on my because I spend all my time judging others on the telegraph website...signed all the below”
by Heiright
Sunday, February 03 2013, 8:53PM
“Rjo
I don't know the ins and outs of the operation at the college and I am certainly not jumping on the band wagon of pointing th finger. But a jury obviously thought different to you and the evidence of money going missing every time miss Marley handled it is pretty big. Also there are hand writing and signature analysts that can be treated as evidence for the prosecution or the defence....... Where these used? Also I have read in earlier posts that there ill be no appeal. I know if it was me who had been wrongly accused I would be appealing to clear my name and seeking compensation for the time spent away from my family. I don't accept the keep quiet and do the time incase I get longer! We are not in a mafia town! Besides which I've never heard of an appeal hearing getting a longer sentence than the original unless the appeal is brought about by the prosecution. I genuinely hope to read about an appeal in later editions of the GT.”
by whatatown
Sunday, February 03 2013, 8:32PM
“I hope i never need andrew bailey to represent me, it seems he is only able to provde rubbish mitigation and little else”
by whatatown
Sunday, February 03 2013, 8:29PM
“I was in a position similar to hers a few years ago. A family man with children accused of theft, marched out in hand cuffs, lost my job in mid december and the world came crashing down.
Many people said "there must be something to it, you dont get arrested for nothing" despite my protestations of innocence.
by the end of january i had made many calls to the police chasing up their investigations progress and eventually was cleared of any wrongdoing.
However, the police still had the opinion that i had lost my job fairly even though there was NO evidence of theft. It was not till I performed some investigations of my own did it come to light that another in the company hadarranged the accusation of theft to get me sacked so that their son would be able to apply for my job. I spent a long time annoyed by this as the police didnt care they got it wrong, they were just upset they couldnt prosecute me.
dont jump to conclusions as the police and cps are happy to go to court if they feel they will get a result, even on the flimsyest of evidence.”
by rjo2687
Sunday, February 03 2013, 6:21PM
“What hasn't been mentioned at all is that there is no concrete evidence. There is no CCTV footage, a safe was never used, and it was mentioned in court that signatures were faked by staff. Miss Marley was not the only person to handle money. They just seem to have relied on these receipts. If someone was to thieve and not want to be found out, surely you wouldn't sign a receipt to suggest you've handled it and then take it because when it comes to banking it wouldn't be there, therefore exposing the theft. What you would do is sign someone else's name to get away with it which is obviously what's happened.
A lot of facts have been left out. And surely a place as big as the college would've noticed this beforehand? Miss Marley wasn't in charge so she wouldn't have got away with it for that length of time if she had done it (which she hasn't).
Also, I've remembered that the telegraph do have a nice picture of Miss Marley from when she worked at the college which they used the first time this appeared in their paper. But obviously using the one of her walking down the street makes her look worse to the readers.”
by Heiright
Sunday, February 03 2013, 5:14PM
“Is there something I'm not reading........ What is the circumstantial evidence you are talking about? I'm not disputing her being a nice girl or having a great family. But people don't get put in prison on circumstantial evidence. I do however think she has been made an example of as people don't often got to prison for this amount of theft. Is this perhaps a bit of skimming off the top not thinking she would hurt anyone and she's been found out......... I speak from experience when the odd £30 here and there mounts into thousands of pounds. Someone was doing that to me and there was genuine shock when it tallied up to 8k”
by Loulou10
Sunday, February 03 2013, 12:48PM
“Kelly Marley is such a kind natured women and I do not believe she has committed this crime.
She has been separated from her young child and family and this is based on circumstantial evidence.
Miss Marley could have very easily been set up.
I'm a big believer in 'karma' lets hope one day the guilt of this crime eats somebody up, and they confess.
My love goes to Kelly and her family xxx”