Last updated 19:24, Thursday, 20 November 2008

THE MANAGER of a Workington health centre admitted her deputy was never told that she had failed in a bid to be recognised as a partner in the practice.

Julie Harris told a jury at Carlisle Crown Court that, while her application to become a partner had been approved, nobody had bothered to tell her assistant Sandra Lancaster that hers had not.

Mrs Harris said that she and Lancaster, a long-time friend, had both wanted to become partners in the Ann Burrows Thomas Health Centre in South William Street, Workington.

But, after their applications were considered by the other partners in April 2004, only Mrs Harris was successful.

Mrs Harris said she had not told Lancaster that her application had been refused, and as far as she knew none of the other partners had either. “There was no discussion either way,” she said.

Lancaster, 50, of Queen Street, Seaton, has pleaded not guilty to seven charges of false accounting at the practice, which is now known as The Orchard Surgery.

The prosecution claims she cooked the books so she could pay herself tens of thousands of pounds more than she was entitled to.

It is alleged that she awarded herself overtime payments for hours she could not have worked, paid herself a higher hourly rate than she was entitled to, and paid herself lump sums totalling well over £10,000.

At one time, it is said, she was taking home more than some of the doctors.

Michael Scholes, prosecuting, suggested that she might have committed the fraud out of anger after her application for a partnership was refused.

The court heard that in interviews with police, Lancaster said all the overtime she had claimed had been approved by Mrs Harris and that all payments she had received had been authorised by the partners.

She claimed to the police that Mrs Harris was pulling the wool over the eyes of the doctors by being involved in various types of dishonesty, fiddling the accounts and falsifying documents.

The case continues.