A TOWN councillor has appeared in court accused of defrauding the NHS out of more than £73,000 in her roles as either an employee, or as a Unison union official.

Tanya Tucker, who served on Durham County Council until earlier this year, but who was recently elected back to Bishop Auckland Town Council, is accused of eight counts of fraud by abuse of position.

The alleged offences, said to have taken place on various dates between June 2013 and September 2017, were for sums of between £1,247 and £36,159, totalling £73,529.

Two are said to have been committed while she was an employee of the North of England Commissioning Support Unit, of the NHS, but six were while she served as an official of Unison’s Northern Regional Health Commissioning Branch.

Mrs Tucker denied all eight counts put to her at a Durham Crown Court plea hearing, but no trial date was set, as it is uncertain which court centre will stage what may prove a complex financial hearing, expected to last up to ten days.

Ian West, for the Crown, said: “With the best will in the world, it’s (Durham Crown Court) not the ideal court to try such a document fraud.”

Recorder Simon Kealey QC responded: “I’m probably not the best judge in the world to make a decision on transferring it, in the absence of Judge (James) Adkin (Durham’s resident judge).”

He adjourned the hearing until Judge Adkin’s return, on a day when both Mr West and defence counsel, Nicholas Askins, can also attend, so the venue and date for the trial can be agreed.

Recorder Kealey reminded the defendant that if she was to choose to change her pleas and admit the offences prior to the trial, if that was her will, she would still receive some discount on sentence.

The 56-year-old defendant, of Walker Drive, Bishop Auckland, was bailed, but she was told she does not need to attend the next hearing, on October 4.

Although she also lost her county council seat and failed to win election back to Bishop Auckland Town Council in May's local elections, she successfully stood in a by-election for a vacant seat in the Henknowle ward on the town council, standing for the Liberal Democrats, last week. 

 

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