A minister jailed for conning his church and a grieving parishioner out of a total of £11,000 is to be released due to the impact on his two children, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Adrian McLaughlin’s 12-month sentence was suspended based on the exceptional circumstances of his teenage son and daughter having been left to fend for themselves.
Senior judges also ordered him to pay £1,000 compensation to the widowed member of the congregation he deceived at St Colman’s Church of Ireland in Dunmurry, Co Antrim.
Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan stressed 50-year-old McLaughlin was not entitled to any personal credit for the abuse of trust.
She stated: “We consider that it represented quite cruel and heartless offending directed against good people within this parish.”
McLaughlin was originally sent to prison in September after being found guilty of defrauding £10,000 from the church.
He was also convicted of defrauding a member of the congregation whose husband had died of a further £1,000.
The offences were committed on dates in 2016 at the church where he had served as minister since 2014.
At the time a fund was set up to help cover restoration costs following a fire which caused extensive damage to the building.
With no treasurer in place during that period, cheques issued from the church’s account required signatures from the minister and another nominated individual.
McLaughlin, from Church Avenue in Dunmurry, asked that person to co-sign a cheque for £10,000 which he claimed was to purchase a replacement church organ.
In November 2016 a member of the congregation appointed treasurer discovered the cheque stub for that amount bore the name Northern Ireland Organs Limited, previous courts heard.
But it later emerged that McLaughlin had instead made the cheque out to himself.
He was also given £1,000 by a bereaved parishioner who had just lost her husband.
She made the donation on the understanding the money would be used to purchase memorial items in honour of her late partner.
McLaughlin asked for the payee line to be left blank on the cheque, and instead of following the widow’s requests filled in his own name and pocketed the £1,000.
The disgraced clergyman has since lost his position as part of separate disciplinary proceedings.
He was originally ordered to serve six months behind bars and a further six months on licence after being told that he had treated the parish like his own “personal fiefdom”.
At the Court of Appeal on Friday, defence lawyers claimed McLaughlin’s sentence was manifestly excessive due to the disproportionate hardship on the two children he has sole custody of.
Richard McConkey KC said his client’s 19-year-old daughter has put her own fledgling career on hold to act as a parent for her 16-year-old brother studying for GCSE exams.
He told the court she has also been forced to sell her clothes to help pay off loans and make ends meet.
Prosecution counsel responded that the need for a deterrent sentence outweighed the difficulties which the defendant’s children have faced.
However, after reading a new statement from McLaughlin’s daughter, the Lady Chief Justice described defence arguments as compelling.
Citing private rights to family life under European law, she identified a stark impact on a son and daughter left to “fend for themselves financially and emotionally”.
“This case has a unique feature where the child and young person are left with no parental figure,” the judge said.
“This is not something the court has had to consider in our collective experience.”
With McLaughlin having already served more than two months in prison, Dame Siobhan confirmed that the rest of his 12-month sentence is to be suspended for two years.