Wheelchair theft man’s pay-back penalty

Hundreds of wheelchairs destined for the needy were stolen by a crooked council worker who sold them online.

Shaun Kirkham sold 275 of the motorised devices belonging to Salford Council on eBay over four years before being outed by a whistleblower, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Now he has been ordered to compensate his former employer by a judge who told him he had only himself to blame if the penalty led to him losing his home.

Kirkham worked as a repair technician at a warehouse controlled by the NHS, and then by Salford council, from which motorised wheelchairs were supplied to needy locals.

In March, 2011, Kirkham began helping himself to the stock. By the time he was caught — in December last year — around £20,000 of wheelchairs had been sold on.

An investigation was sparked by a complaint from a whistleblower, prosecutor Phil Dobson told court. It revealed Kirkham had pocketed £12,260 from the scam.

The 46-year-old, of Arden Street, Oldham, has now been given a 16-month sentence, suspended for a year, after admitting theft and fraud charges at an earlier hearing. When Kirkham was first challenged he claimed he had only stolen wheelchairs destined for scrap from a skip, before admitting the extent of his crimes.

Judge Martin Steiger QC ordered Kirkham to do 250 hours unpaid work and pay £15,000 in compensation to Salford Council.

Explaining why he was not jailing him on the spot, the judge said: “If the sentence was put into effect immediately there would be less possibility for the defendant to make compensation to the council — something I’m entirely satisfied he and his wife will be able to do from the jointly-owned marital home.

“If that means the defendant loses his home that is only the consequences of his own extended period of stealing from an employer, prejudicing the welfare of invalids in the community.”