http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... le-9722690
The former treasurer of the Lancashire Darts Organisation has been spared jail after stealing £23,000 in prize money and membership fees to fund an addiction to fruit machines.
Irene Mungins, 70, ‘threw away’ thousands in arcades at Salford Precinct, and on an online website called ‘Jackpot Joy’.
By the time her dishonesty was discovered, there was just £100 left in the bank.
The LDO - which has produced some of the country’s top professional darts players - was left on the ‘brink of extinction’ by the frauds.
Members were stunned to learn that Mungins - who had been involved with the sport for 23 years - had betrayed so many of her friends, even seeking to blame them when she was arrested by police.
A £10,000 bail-out from the British Darts Organisation saved the LDO from bankruptcy.
Mungins, of Rudyard Road, Salford, has now been sentenced to an 18-month sentence, suspended for two years, plus 12-months supervision, after admitting theft.
Sentencing at Manchester Crown Court, Judge Hilary Manley said the case was a ‘very sad fall from grace for a woman who had hitherto led a blame-free life’.
Mungins now faces losing her home as the authorities try to claw the money back.
The mum-of-two was elected as treasurer of the LDO in 2008, and was regarded as a person of ‘absolute integrity’ by members.
She had sole charge of the organisation’s bank account, which covered all its costs, from travel to prize money.
But in 2011, burdened with relatives’ ill health, her own ill health, and financial problems, she began to ‘seek escapism’ in gambling.
The full scale of her addiction only emerged in 2013 - after staff learnt £3,500 in coach bills had gone unpaid.
Mungins responded by going into hiding from mystified colleagues, refusing to answer calls or the door.
She was arrested in November 2012 and the police investigation would reveal that over a 21-month period Mungins made a staggering 336 withdrawals from LDO funds.
A worker at the Quicksilver Arcade in Salford told officers she was a ‘constant gambler’ - and enquiries with Jackpot Joy revealed she had plunged £50,000 into an online account, losing £35,000 of it.
Interviewed by police, Mungins lied that LDO members had ‘pressured’ her into giving them money.
She claimed a small fortune had gone on frames for certificates - when she had spent just £118 on them. She also claimed the cash had been spent on darts shirts - when all of them had been paid for by cheque, and just had been bought with cash.
Paul Hodgkinson, defending ‘deeply ashamed’ Mungins, said she had been ‘gripped’ by gambling - a compulsion he said posed a ‘real danger’ to society.
“She initially started to take small amounts of money with the intention of returning that money once a win came in - but as we all know, wins very rarely come”, the barrister said.
In a statement, William Thompson, chair of the LDO said: “Prior to this discovery I would have trusted Irene Mungins with my life, as we all would, committee members and players. It was the ultimate crime of betrayal of friendship and trust.”
