Birmingham siblings jailed for using charity donations to pay off personal loans, debts and family expenses

Rajbinder Kaur, 55, and her brother Kaldip Singh Lehal, 43, have been charged after using the donations sent to their charity, Sikh Youth UK, to pay of personal loans, debts, and for sending donated money to family members. 

Kaur, who is a former bank-worker, was convicted in September last year for money laundering and six counts of theft amounting to £50,000. 

Kaur and her brother were also both convicted of knowingly or recklessly provide false or misleading information to the Charity Commission. 

The trial at Birmingham Crown Court last year heard how Kaur and Lehal ran an organisation called Sikh Youth UK (SYUK) which was formed in 2016. 

An application was made in 2016 to the Charity Commission for SYUK to become a registered charity, but when the commission asked for further information about SYUK, it was not given. 

This resulted in the charity application being closed. 

SYUK received countless donations through fundraising events - including a sponsored winter sleepout and a football tournament - in 2018.

Kaur would transfer funds from the SYUK bank to her own personal bank accounts, of which she had over 50 in an attempt to make it as 'complicated as possible' to follow the flow of stolen money.

Yesterday, Kaur was sentenced to two years and eight months imprisonment. 

Lehal was given a four months sentence suspended for 18 months and 80 hours of community service.

The pair, both formally of Hamstead Road near Handsworth.

 were initially arrested in July 2019 and subsequently charged in September 2019.

Superintendent Annie Miller, from West Midlands Police, said: “Kaur tried to portray herself as someone naïve about financial matters despite having worked in a bank.

“SYUK was clearly a means to fund her lifestyle and pay her debts off, but in the simplest of terms Kaur was stealing large amounts of money that had been donated by local people for good causes.

“This has been a very long and complex investigation into fraud, and we have worked closely with the Charity Commission to bring this pair to justice.”