Northamptonshire Community Foundation '˜disappointed' by former charity chairman's £105,000 theft

Hasan Jama, aged 38, of Austin Street, Northampton, was sentenced to two years and three months in jail on Monday after he admitted stealing £105,000 from the Northamptonshire Somali Forum.

Northampton Crown Court heard the forum was a charity that received donations for the Northamptonshire Community Foundation, Big Lottery Fund and Northamptonshire County Council.

Victoria Miles, chief executive of the Northamptonshire Community Foundation said the organisation had assisted the police in building the case against Jama.

She said: “The Northamptonshire Community Foundation makes grants in excess of £1million to approximately 260 charitable groups and projects across Northamptonshire every year. We take our responsibilities as a charitable funder very seriously and have in place appropriate processes and procedures through our monitoring and evaluation work to scrutinise and validate every single grant we make.

“It is in this context that the staff and trustees of the Northamptonshire Community Foundation were particularly disappointed to learn of Hasan Jama’s thefts from the Northamptonshire Somali Forum which had itself been a beneficiary of an award from the Foundation along with other funders.

“The Foundation were pleased to be able to assist the police with provision of evidence which led to the successful prosecution and sentence handed down.”