A BEREAVED village hall treasurer and trustee forged signatures and reduced the institution to insolvency to pay for her gambling, York Crown Court heard.

Robert Stevenson, prosecuting, said Lynda Ann Walker, 64, fraudulently paid £9,255 into her own bank account from that of Cridling Stubbs Village Hall with 17 cheques and a forged mandate making her a signatory to the account, between February, 2013, and January, 2014.

For Walker, Louise Reevell said she had started gambling to cope with a series of family bereavements, starting with her parents’ deaths.

“The gambling escalated, she got into debt, she got into arrears with rent and council tax ...things spiralled completely out of control,” she said.

Judge Colin Burn told Walker: “A village hall is a community treasure, as you well know, since you still live in the village.”

Her crimes had had a “dreadful corrosive influence on the community spirit of the village.”

He declared the premises had become insolvent, but it was continuing to be able to host events.

Walker, of Hanover Green, Cridling Stubbs, near Eggborough, pleaded guilty to four charges of fraud and was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years on condition she did two years’ supervision, attend rehabilitation sessions and do 100 hours’ unpaid work.

She must also pay £750 compensation to the village hall.

The judge could not order more because of her financial state. Mr Stevenson said the village hall account required two signatures on every cheque.

On some she forged both, on others, after forging the mandate in 2013, she forged one and added her own.

At no time was she, as treasurer, officially authorised to sign cheques.

Since April 2011, she failed to provide proper accounts. Walker now had debts of £5,000 and suffered depression.