Image: Yorkshire Evening Post
Charity collection fraud has cost a national gang more than £100,000, after two of its members were ordered to repay money gathered by posing as fundraisers, including one dressed as Children in Need mascot Pudsey Bear. Seven people were convicted in 2023 after it was found they had posed as collectors for well-known charities, yet none or very little of the cash they gathered ever reached those causes. Instead, the money funded the gang’s criminal lifestyles. The confiscated sums will now go to four of the organisations the gang targeted, so those charities can receive money taken in their names.
The Crown Prosecution Service said David Levi, aged 49, and Stephen Chesterman, aged 64, were part of an organised gang that scammed the public by pretending to collect donations. The two men were handed confiscation orders totalling £107,056. Levi, of Lytham St Annes in Lancashire, received an order of £4,438, which will be paid to Children in Need, The Children’s Society and Mind as compensation. Chesterman, of Benfleet in Essex, received an order of £102,618 on 3 March 2025 at Preston Crown Court. Levi has 56 days to pay back the money, or he could face an additional default sentence of three months in prison on top of his original sentence. Chesterman has three months to pay, or he could face a default sentence of 18 months in prison.
Levi went as far as dressing as Pudsey Bear, a mascot well recognised by the public, so that members of the public would hand over money. The gang posed as collectors for Great Ormond Street Hospital, Children in Need, Mind, The Children’s Society and Comic Relief. All of it will be paid to Children in Need, Mind, The Children’s Society and Great Ormond Street Hospital. That sum will be paid to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
