CLAIMS that an Adelaide woman stole tens of thousands of dollars donated to a Riverland animal shelter were rejected in the Supreme Court earlier this month.
Moorook Animal Shelter owner Lola McLachlan was seeking to take control of more than $75,000 in donations in the possession of Helen Joy Hamilton, alleging Ms Hamilton had wrongfully kept the funds.
Ms Hamilton had volunteered to create and operate a website from Adelaide for members of the public to make donations to the animal shelter, with Ms McLachlan alleging that between 24 May, 2010 and July 31, 2013 about $114,000 had been donated through the website of which Ms Hamilton had wrongly retained $75,000.
In May, Magistrate Briony Kennewell held that the payments into Ms Hamilton’s bank account “were gifts for a charitable purpose” and that Ms Hamilton, acting as a charitable trustee, was within her rights to “require the bank to pay the total credit funds to herself”.
Ms McLachlan and South Ozz Shelter, the charity trading as the Moorook Animal Shelter, appealed the decision, but on July 7 Supreme Court Justice David Peek dismissed the appeal.
“Ms Hamilton never ‘stole’ monies from the appellants because they were never in possession of such monies,” Justice Peek said.
Justice Peek also rejected claims by the appellants that Ms Hamilton did not hold the funds under charitable trust and that the funds were donated for the shelter.
“The subject funds were all paid by members of the public into Ms Hamilton’s bank account, not for the benefit of any person but rather for a charitable purpose,” Justice Peek said.
“That purpose was ‘funding activities concerning the care of dogs and cats at the shelter’ which is carefully distinguished from the appellants’ bald assertion that ‘the funds were donated for the shelter’.”
Criminal proceedings against Ms Hamilton were listed for trial in October during a hearing at the Berri Magistrates Court in late June.