Colleen McCabe (born September 1952) is a British fraudster who spent £500,000 on herself from the budget of the school where she was the headteacher.^[1]

Early years

From 1974 to 1989 she was a nun with the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul. After 15 years she decided to become a teacher, and joined St John Rigby School where she was made headteacher in 1991.^[2]

During her time as headmistress before her spending, she was praised for her strong discipline in the school and for improving the school's facilities. She made the school grant-maintained in 1995, thus allowing McCabe to have complete control over the school's budget (with permission from the school's governors).

Spending

McCabe lavished money from the school's budget on clothes, shoes, jewellery, trips, takeaways and wine for the governors' meetings, champagne receptions and three holidays to Malta.

This was achieved with cutbacks, including:

• using her pupils and contract cleaners for cleaning
• shutting down the school heaters
• asking children to work with old textbooks and computers
• sacking or underpaying many teachers.

Punishment

McCabe was convicted of all eleven charges of theft and six charges of deception. She was originally jailed for five years, but this was dropped to four years on appeal. She was later released after serving half of her sentence.

Television

She was portrayed in 2006 by Pauline Quirke in the BBC Two docu-drama The Thieving Headmistress.^[3]

References

External links

• A piece from the Guardian newspaper, "A theft too far"