An 'inspirational' former headteacher at a London school has been given a suspended prison sentence after admitting false accounting by creating paperwork retrospectively.
Sir Alan Davies, who was knighted for his services to education, pleaded guilty to creating a false paper trail on bonus payments and allowances while head of Copland secondary school in Brent. He was described by his lawyer as and inspirational teacher, who had taken the school 'from the very bottom of the academic ladder to very near the top'.
Southwark Crown Court heard that Davies paid himself, three staff members and two governors a total of £2.7m over several years through bonuses and salaries, which the prosecution made clear was money to which they were entitled.
However, Davies created backdated paperwork and invoicces to support some of the payments once he became aware they were likely to be the subject of scrutiny, in order to give the impression the correct procedures had been followed.
The six charges of false accounting that Davies admitted related to payments dating back to 2007 totalling £315,000, including several bonuses for Davies himself. Davies generated all the paperwork for these payments at the same time, rather than when the payments were made.
Sentencing Davies, Judge Deborah Taylor said: 'You have failed in your duty as head of the school - in failing to ensure proper, transparent management and, more importantly, you lied about it and resorted to dishonest fabrication. What sort of message did that send to the children?'>
In a statement made following the case Davies said he accepted he did not have all the necessary paperwork in place and that he had 'made a profound error of judgment by backdating eight documents'.
Davies, who resigned from his £160,000-a-year post in October 2009 after 20 years at the school, was given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years.
Two counts of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud were dropped, as were conspiracy charges against five others at the school, including two school governors.
