AN EMPLOYEE stole almost £200,000 from a charity, claiming the money was owed to him for working overtime and weekends, a court heard.

Stephen Osborne, 43, of Ilfracombe Avenue, Southend is standing trial at Basildon Crown Court charged with fraud after allegedly using a colleague’s details to approve the payments to himself.

He is accused of stealing £26,761.65 from the charity between September 2014 and August 2015, and then a further £161,162.48 between August 2016 and July 2017.

He was working with the disabled charity Vibrant which is based in Southend and Bethnal Green.

Osborne told police that he was owed the money for working overtime and taking on shifts when he was due to be off.

Prosecuting’ David Ryan’ said: “He had a significant level of trust placed on him and he abused that responsibility by his fraudulent actions.

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“He was authorised to verify payments of up to £10,000, pay role transactions of up to £80,000 per month and payments to Revenue and Customs of up to £150,000 each month.

“There had to be a second person to confirm and agree the payments and by April 2017 his work was going down and it kept suffering too. Audits found 44 payments were sent to his own Halifax bank account and a further 32 payments.”

He told the jury Osborne used a managers card to authorise the payments and had “duped”

another colleague to get hold of the card.

Mr Ryan added: “He created fake names of businesses to make it appear that these were genuine invoices.

“He says the money was for overtime and weekends and working when he was due to be off.

“He told police he had to use the fake business names as the charity did not have a way of paying overtime and he only took what was owed and the company knew.

A witness stated Osborne told the company he was going through tough times with the death of his mother and break down of his relationship.

The trial continues.