The former head of finance at homelessness charity Cyrenians Cymru has been charged with fraud, almost two years after the charity was forced to close.
Cyrenians Cymru went into liquidation owing £915,000 in May 2015 and most of its projects were transferred to other local charities.
Two arrests were made in late 2014 and early 2015 in connection with on suspicion of a “systematic and extensive” fraud worth £800,000.
Robert Mark Davies, 49, was arrested in 2014 and will appear in Cardiff Magistrates Court on 21 February.
Charity collapse
The charity went into administration shortly after the arrests and Alun Evans of Bevan & Buckland was appointed to wind up the charity.
According to the latest progress report almost £410,000 was realised from the sale of the charity’s properties, equipment and various refunds. Evans was appointed as the voluntary liquidator was appointed earlier this month to complete the process of winding it up.
Cyrenians Cymru specialised in tackling homelessness and poverty in Swansea and the surrounding area. It was registered with the Commission in 1974 and employed 75 staff. It had ten active projects with an estimated 2,500 service users in Wales.
Fraud was suspected after the senior management team called in auditors when they were concerned about high spending levels in one project, Family Housing. Auditors said they were unable to finalise the accounts and concerns were reported to police at the end of 2014.
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