Parish minister Rev Adrian McLaughlin goes on trial accused of stealing over £10,000 from church and hospital group

Opening the trial against 50-year-old Reverend Adrian McLaughlin, Crown counsel Joseph Murphy told the jury that according to prosecution case “this case is not about bad book keeping - this case, we say, is about downright dishonesty.”

He told the Craigavon Crown Court jury while they were duty bound to consider each of the six counts separately, “we say there’s a certain overlap between the counts, there is a central theme.”

“That theme is that the defendant abused his position as rector in order to serve his own personal interests,” declared Mr Murphy.

Rev. McLaughlin, with an address at Church Avenue in Dunmurry, faces a total of six charges of committing fraud by abuse of position on dates between 15 October 2016 and 1 October 2018 with five off the offences relating to St. Colman’s Parish Church and the final charge relating to his role as a “constructive trustee” with the RVH Liver Unit Group.

The particulars of the offences accuse Rev. McLaughlin of:

Writing out a £10,000 cheque to himself;

Taking a £1,000 donation for himself;

Taking £520 from two complainants who had made donations and one who paid to use the church hall and

Pocketed donations from a funeral held at the church but intended to go to RVH Liver Unit Group at a time when he was a “constructive trustee of the said monies for the benefit of the RVH Liver Unit Group.”

Emphasising that his opening was not evidence in the case, Mr Murphy told the jury how Rev. McLaughlin was appointed as the rector of Dunmurry Parish Church in June 2014 and he, along with his then wife Christian, lived in the rectory.

In January 2016 “the church building suffering significant damage in a fire” and the jury heard that in the aftermath, “much of the governance” of the parish and it’s rebuild was down to the rector and the “select vestry” but with no treasurer in place for a few months from August 2016, cheques had to have have two signatures.

Taking each charge in turn, Mr Murphy said the first count related to what he termed as the “organ cheque” and told the jury that according to the Crown case, Rev. McLaughlin asked John Williams, a member of the select vestry, to sign a cheque for £10,000 claiming that it was to buy a replacement organ from a church in Glasgow.

The defendant allegedly told Mr Williams “he needed to pay for it soon or they would miss this great bargain” and although the payee line was blank, “the defendant told him he needed to get the correct name of the organisation” and when he got that “he would write it in himself.”

“Mr Williams, trusting the rector of his church, co-signed that cheque,” said Mr Murphy adding however that the cheque “did not get to any organisation selling an organ - it was lodged into the defendant’s own personal bank account six days later.”

As the cheque stub had been filled out that the payee was NI Organs ltd, the “irregularity went unnoticed” for some time but by November 2018, “some of the parishioners complained to police about financial irregularities involving the defendant.”

When the reverend was asked by police about the £10,000 cheque, he admitted lodging it into his own account but initially claimed “he had permission of the select vestry to do so” with £4,000 of it for expenses he had personally incurred and the remainder for “future church expenses.”

Later on however Rev. McLaughlin “account changed” and he claimed that instead of that being agreed at a formal meeting where there would have been minutes taken, he claimed there had been an informal agreement with mr Williams and his wife Lynn who would become church treasurer.

Count two, he told the court, related to a cheque for £1,000 written out by a lady whose husband had sadly died and she wanted to make a donation.

She left the payee line blank but handed the cheque to the defendant “making it clear that this was a donation to the church in memory of her late husband” but subsequent enquiries revealed that the cheque “was lodged not into the church bank account but into the rector’s personal account on 17 October 2016, the day after Mr Williams co-signed the £10,000 cheque.”

During police interviews Rev. McLaughlin claimed he had used £800 of it too buy two antique candlesticks from a shop in Saintfield and that he remembered lifting £800 from an ATM to pay for them and that his wife was there.

Police investigations however showed there had been no such withdrawal from his account and also that “his ex-wife has no memory of that ever happening.”

Count three related to a slimming world group paying £120 every week, in cash, to Rev. McLaughlin but according to the crown case, none of that money was ever lodged into the church’s bank account.

The new treasurer asked the defendant where the cash was or for the receipts but he told her “he had been using it as petty cash to discharge expenses.”

The last three counts related to payments for funerals being conducted and also a collection taken at one of them, money which the crown say was never properly lodged but instead was taken by the defendant.

Explaining that it is for the jury to decide what evidence they accept and what they reject, Mr Murphy told the jury they may feel sympathy for the congregation of Dunmurry Parish Church who “placed blind faith in their rector” and found that faith was abused or they may feel sympathy for Rev. McLaughlin that as a man of God “his reputation is on the line.”

He told them however they must approach the trial, set to last until the end of next week, “cooly, calmly and dispassionately” and when they do, “we will ask you to return verdicts of guilty.”

The trial continues.

At hearing.