Former ACCA president pleads guilty to theft

An ex-ACCA president and former health service finance chief who deceived his
wife and cheated his step-son and daughter-in-law out of £20,000 has escaped
being jailed.

Dennis Yeates, president of the ACCA in 2006, pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown
Court to a charge of theft.

Yeates stole the money from his step-son, consultant orthopaedic surgeon
Peter Thompson, and from Thompson’s GP wife Dr Sally Cooper by claiming he was
investing it for them.

But after hearing that he has since borrowed from his sister to repay the
money, the judge sentenced him to eight month in prison suspended for two years.

Yeates (46) of Shrubbery Road, Worcester, was also ordered to undertake 180
hours of unpaid work and to pay £500 costs.

Prosecutor Neil Bannister said that unknown to his wife and family, he lost
his job as deputy director of finance with the Worcestershire Mental Health
Partnership and NHS Trust in 2007 but kept up the pretence that he was still in
employment.

The following year he told members of his wife’s family about a very
attractive share deal in a company called Desire Petroleum plc, which he urged
them to invest in through him, claiming he did work for the firm.

Thompson and Cooper, who live in Leamington Spa, Warwicks, handed over a
total of £20,000 to him in July 2008.

But as well as paying for himself and his wife to go on a £7,000 holiday to
China as part of his pretence, he used some of the money to maintain a
relationship with another woman in London.

Mr Bannister added that Yeates’s sister has since re-mortgaged her home to
lend him £20,000 to repay the money, after no shares had been purchased.

Nicholas Roberts, defending, said: “He had a responsible position, but the
leading of a double life and the loss of that position led him into stealing the
money.”

He did intend to buy the shares, but began using the money to keep up the
pretence he was still working, expecting to replace it when he received his
share from the sale of his late mother’s home, but it has still not been sold.

“He is now ruined as far as his chosen profession is concerned,” added Mr
Roberts.
The judge, Recorder Lynn Tayton QC told Yeates: “You were in a position of trust
so far as your wife’s family were concerned, and you abused that trust.”