Conman pocketed pounds 350,000.

Byline: Nick McCarthy

A BOGUS charity collector who pocketed nearly pounds 350,000 from street collections which he said were for disadvantaged children has been jailed for four and a half years.

Mark Tennant, aged 44, took the cash from well-wishers who thought they were donating to a charity that helped severely disadvantaged, terminally ill and disabled children. Tennant, of Jiggins Lane, Bartley Green, who was described in court as "deeply religious", admitted five charges of obtaining money by deception, two of fraud and one count of concealing criminal property.

Judge Philip Parker QC told the disgraced dad-of-one that his life had been "a fraud" after Birmingham Crown Court heard that he collected pounds 112,000 in 2003 but only handed over pounds 3,674 to good causes. A year later his own accounts show that he collected pounds 128,000 but only handed over pounds 8,364. Tennant collected cash in buckets without a licence from shopping and town centres across the West Midlands.

Jailed: Mark Tennant.

He also employed 'volunteers' and supplied them with fake identification badges, T-shirts, leaflets, and even used a fake charity number for the Child's Wish organisation.

He was finally caught in January 2008 when a genuine director of the Child's Wish charity saw and confronted one of Tennant's collectors at The Lanes Shopping Centre, in Wylde Green, Sutton Coldfield.

Tennant had also claimed to be working in conjunction with Disability Concern Limited, which does not exist.

Just two months later another of his volunteers was caught outside Boots at the Princess Alice Retail Park in New Oscott.

The court heard that he had been challenged a number of times by the Charity Commission, but he had always managed to "fob them off."

Nicholas Smith, prosecuting, said: "Large numbers of the public were taken in because this fraud was operated in a sophisticated way."

Balraj Bhatia, defending, said: "He is a deeply religious man. He accepts his guilt and is deeply remorseful. The money went towards paying off debts for his failed printing business."

Judge Parker told him: "You purport to be a man of exemplary character, a churchgoer, a good family man. But, in a large part your life has been a fraud. Collecting for disabled and disadvantaged children is an area that engenders the greatest public sympathy and generosity."

OUR SAY: PAGE 16