Standing in the dock of Craigavon Crown Court 60-year-old Ernest Reddick entered guilty pleas to 12 of the 14 charges against him, all committed between 1 January 2012 and 30 November 2021.
Reddick, a director with CMC accountants and who is from the Diamond Road in Dromore, admitted 11 charges of fraud by abuse of position and a single offence of false accounting.
He did however deny a further charge of fraud by abusing his position of trust by applying for a £25,000 loan in the name of the church and transferring criminal property, namely the £25,000 into his own account.
The fraud offences Reddick accepted outline how he abused his position of trust within Lisburn Baptist Church in order to transfer funds from their bank account to his own while the false accounting charge discloses how he “destroyed, defaced, concealed or falsified a certain account record or document namely financial account records which had been made or required for an accounting purpose.”
The facts of the case have not yet been opened but the court heard previously how the overall alleged fraud is some £241,000.
In court today defence counsel Mark Farrell emphasised that while Riddick had denied two offences in relation to the £25,000 loan “they are the same transaction which is accepted on a full facts basis but there is slight element of duplicity.”
“The prosecution are going to look at them,” revealed the barrister adding that “a plea will be offered to one or other.”
He submitted that despite that issue to be ironed out, “that would not preclude a pre-sentence report” being ordered.
Judge Donna McColgan KC ordered a PSR and although she did not set a date for the plea and sentence, she said she would review the case and set a date on 19 March.