Northern Ireland

Sentence deferred for policeman to pay back stolen £52,000

Bryan Thomas Stronge leaves court after pleading guilty last year
Bryan Thomas Stronge leaves court after pleading guilty last year Bryan Thomas Stronge leaves court after pleading guilty last year

A POLICEMAN who stole more than £50,000 from a Belfast PSNI station had his sentence deferred for three months to pay back the cash.

Bryan Thomas Stronge admitted taking a total of £52,878.63 in warrant money while working as Station Constable at Tennent Street.

The 53-year old, from Coastguard Lane in Groomsport, appeared at Belfast Crown Court on Wednesday where Judge Gordon Kerr was told he planned to pay back the money using his pension and the sale of his house.

At a hearing last month, Crown prosecutor Rosemary Walsh said that for a period spanning from the latter part of 2009 to the early 2012, Stronge "was retrieving warrant monies from the safe but treating the money as his own".

He started his police career in 1987, but was assigned as Station Constable at Tennent Street due to a traffic accident and part of this role was dealing with money warrants.

Ms Walsh said the payment system was initially paper-based and involved the officer who executed the warrant issuing a receipt to the defendant, then placing the warrant and money in a safe at the station.

Stronge would then empty the safe, and while the warrant details were entered into a form the money was lodged initially at the Northern Bank, but later with the District Finance Office.

In March 2010, the system changed and all details of warrants were dealt with electronically through a system that could be accessed by both the PSNI and the Court Service.

Despite this, money was still paid into the safe and emptied by Stronge.

His offending began to emerge in May 2011 when it came to the Court Office's attention that two warrants were shown to be paid but the money had not been received.

Stronge claimed that neither the paperwork nor the money could be located at Tennent Street.

However, an investigation later revealed there were 374 outstanding warrants between November 2009 and February 2012 amounting to just over £53,000.

Defence barrister Frank O'Donoghoe said Stronge had lost his career, long-term partner, home and vast majority of his pension due to his actions.

He also expressed an apology "to anyone who was connected to his case."

Describing most of his 28-year working record as "impeccable and loyal in the midst of the Troubles and beyond", Mr O'Donoghoe said his offending was due to "crippling debts, and the immediate access to very small sums of money which was a temptation too much".

Stronge was released on continuing bail to return on April 8 for sentencing.