Uncle jailed for Ellie May trust fund fraud

27 November 2009

THE UNCLE of a five-year-old girl who lost her limbs to meningitis has been jailed for stealing £350,000 from her trust fund.

Ellie May Challis, who used to live in Collier Row, touched the hearts of people up and down the country who heard about her plight and pledged thousands of pounds hoping to cover the cost of new arms and legs for her to walk again.

Ellie May's uncle Darren Pease, 33, of Dewey Road, Dagenham, who was a trustee of the fund, was sentenced to four years behind bars at Basildon Crown Court on Wednesday.

The city banker helped himself to little Ellie May's money between 2005 and 2008 leaving just over £200 in the fund.

Luxury

He splashed the money he swindled on luxury holidays and jewellery, believed to be in an attempt at save his marriage.

Pease handed himself in to police in June this year when the family realised the money was missing.

He pleaded guilty to 15 counts of committing fraud while in a position of trust and three counts of obtaining property by deception and asked for another 31 offences to be taken into consideration.

He was jailed for a total of four years.

The bank has since refunded the entire amount back to Ellie May's family.

The trust fund was set up for Ellie May by her parents Lisa and Paul Challis, who have since moved from their home in Cross Road, Collier Row, to Clacton.

They put an appeal in the Recorder in September 2005 to help them raise money to pay for false limbs after Ellie May's own were amputated due to meningitis when she was just 17 months old.

Within a year of the campaign starting, more than £380,000 had been raised by the community who held fundraising football matches, discos, cake sales and race nights. Famous faces including actor Billy Murray, and footballer David Beckham, also backed the cause.

The limbs were needed to enable Ellie May to lead a normal life like her twin sister Sophie Leigh and had to be replaced every four years, costing £6,000 per limb each time.

In September 2008, after receiving prosthetic limbs raised from the donations, Ellie was able to attend Parsonage Farm Primary School in Farm Road, Rainham.