Cardiff college co-founder admits stealing £5 million from charity as wife denies charges
A Cardiff Sixth Form College co-founder has admitted stealing £5 million from the charity, while his wife denies charges alleging she took more than £5 million. Prosecutors say the couple treated the college’s fee income as a personal fund, using it to support a lavish lifestyle; the allegations are being heard in court.
The alleged offences span 2008 to 2016, after the college began recruiting international students in 2009 and became a high-performing school with more than 300 students. The prosecution says financial withdrawals left the accountant unable to prepare proper audited accounts, and that a replacement accountant submitted misleading information; he has pleaded guilty to an offence relating to false accounts. The trial is expected to last ten weeks and is continuing.
- Nadeem Sarwar admitted stealing £5 million from the college charity.
- Yasmin Sarwar denies nine theft and fraud charges.
- The trial in Merthyr Tydfil is continuing.
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Cardiff Sixth Form College is an independent school established as a charity. Allegations have emerged that the co-founder and his wife misused substantial sums of the college's fee income for personal purposes rather than educational spending.
The college expanded after it began accepting international students in 2009, becoming a high-performing school with over 300 pupils. Between 2008 and 2016, withdrawals from the college's finances were so extensive that proper audited accounts could not be prepared, which prevented the usual oversight of how the money was being used.
The case is significant because it involves millions of pounds of charitable money that was supposed to support students' education. The alleged misappropriation went undetected for several years partly because the scale of the financial withdrawals prevented the college from maintaining properly audited accounts that would normally highlight such problems.
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Originally published by Daily Mail as “‘Tiger mum’ and husband ‘stole’ over £5million in school fees ‘after couple set up top college then treated it as their own piggy bank’, court told”.