A woman who stole nearly £50,000 from her own charitable organisation burst into tears as she was jailed. Rajbinder Kaur used funds donated to Sikh Youth UK to pay off her personal expenses because she was in considerable debt and living a lifestyle she could not afford.
The 55-year-old ex-banker then disguised the money trail by transferring sums between her own 50 accounts as well as to other people. Kaur and her convicted drug dealer brother Kaldip Singh Lehal, 44, also lied to The Charity Commission when their organisation was investigated.
Their sentencing took placed amid a demonstration at Birmingham Crown Court today, Thursday, January 9, as protestors claimed the case was a ‘witch hunt’. Kaur of Taverners Green, Handsworth Wood was sentenced to two years and eight months having been found guilty of six counts of theft, one count of money laundering and another offence of supplying false information to The Charity Commission.
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Singh Lehal of Davenport Road, Coventry, was sentenced to four months suspended for 18 months having only been found guilty of The Charity Commission offence.
Kaur broke down in tears and repeated ‘God is my witness’ as she was led out of court. Judge Dean Kershaw had told her: “You were in incredible personal debt, it seems all of your own making.”
He added: “You agree you relied on money from the organisation to pay for your mortgage and repay your credit cards. You were repaying debts and debt companies with the organisation’s money.
Rajbinder Kaur
“Money people had donated for good reasons, not to fund your badly organised lifestyle. You should be utterly ashamed.”
The judge stated Kaur’s lying testimony to the jury at trial was ‘painful to watch’ as he blasted her ‘deceptive and dishonest nature’. But he acknowledged at the time she stole the money in 2018 and 2019 she was under ‘huge financial strain’.
Judge Kershaw criticised Singh Lehal for his ‘arrogance’ for what he concluded was an attempt to ‘intimidate’ prosecutor Tim Harrington following the jury’s verdict in September last year. But he credited him for turning his life around from past drug abuse, which included periods of imprisonment for dealing.
Judge Kershaw also stated that much of Singh Lehal’s work with Sikh Youth UK was ‘aimed at doing good’ only for it to ‘unravel’ when The Charity Commission started to investigate. He said: “What you did was deliberate. You aimed to frustrate the commission and put them off the scent because you knew what your sister was doing.”
Kaldip Singh Lehal
However he dismissed his description as an ‘activist’, adding he was ‘entitled to have whatever political views you want’. Singh Lehal was ordered to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work and up to 30 days of rehabilitation activity.
Kaur and Singh Lehal formed Sikh Youth UK in 2016 to support young people and raise awareness around social issues including drugs, bullying and grooming. A formal application was made for the organisation to become a registered charity but The Charity Commission closed the bid after they did not receive some further information which they had requested.
Judge Kershaw said he had ‘no doubt’ it was operating as a charity and had ‘extremely good aims’. He stated both defendants played a significant part in running it with Kaur handling the financial side and Singh Lehal involved in organising activities.
Sikh Youth UK organised a number of events, notably including an annual football tournament and a sponsored sleepout. But prosecutor Tim Harrington said there were no ‘proper accounts’ and only ‘limited and haphazard’ attempts from Kaur at keeping financial records on scrawled pieces of paper.
She oversaw the organisation’s Barclays bank account and between 2018 and 2019 stole around £48,000. Mr Harrington said: “She was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Sikh activists at Birmingham Crown Court demonstrating in support of Rajbinder Kaur and Kaldip Singh Lehal
(Image: Nick Wilkinson/Birmingham Live)
“Some money went to family members. There was the pretence she was more well-to-do. Other money serviced debts. Debt she owed to the High Court. There was money that paid off bills.
“She had £98,000 worth of debt by the end of the investigation. She was stealing money to pay for a lifestyle she couldn’t afford.”
Scott Tuppen, defending Kaur, told he court she had worked in banking until being made redundant in 2010. He said: “At that point things started to deteriorate for her. There were difficult personal circumstances in terms of a previous relationship. Things started to unravel for her.” He added that Kaur was remorseful, had suffered mental health problems and described how she had broken down at the realisation ‘things had got on top of her’.
Catherine Obourne, defending Singh Lehal, emphasised that Sikh Youth UK did ‘good work’ and was not a ‘front’. She added he changed from a ‘life of crime’, in relation to his previous drug supply convictions many years ago, to a ‘life of activism and helping the community’.
Supporters of Singh Lehal, who is also known as ‘Deepa Singh’, claimed it was his political stance against UK and Indian ‘collusion’ that has made him a target for the prosecution in the first place. In 2018 he was one of a number of Sikh activists whose home was raided by authorities, while in December 2023 he was detained by counter-terror police at Gatwick Airport for questioning before being let go.
Baljit Singh
(Image: Birmingham Mail / Live)
Shamsher Singh, from the National Sikh Youth Federation, was among dozens of protestors who demonstrated outside of court, with some holding a big banner claiming the case was a ‘witch hunt’. He told Birmingham Live: “The conviction is what it is.
“End of the day it is very clear to us that the charities commission (sic) legislation and rules were retroactively applied to Sikh Youth UK – that has never been a charity – in order to create a verdict that presents them in a negative light. And tarnishes not only Sikh Youth UK and Deepa Singh, which has always been the objective in our opinion, but present Sikh activism in a negative light because Deepa is known in the Sikh community for his staunch support on social issues and for his vocal support for the Palestine movement.”
Fellow protestor Baljit Singh added: “If you look at the trial there’s no members there of anyone that was defrauded, there is no victim. The members, the volunteers and benefactors of Sikh Youth UK’s work was the Sikh community themselves.
“So internally there’s no issue with any sort of allegations of misspent, misused funds. But what’s happened is they have deemed it to be a charity and therefore in foul of rules which govern charities and this was only when more serious charges haven’t stuck.”