A woman has appeared in court after being accused of swindling more than £30,000 raised by the public in memory of her dead brother to spend on clothes and food.
Kayleigh Pepper, 36, is alleged to have pocketed the money from a high-profile campaign to tackle knife crime after her brother Richard was brutally stabbed to death, reports HullLive.
Hull Crown Court heard Pepper is charged with committing a £33,000 fraud against the foundation set up to honour her brother. She denies the charge.
The Rich Foundation was set up to raise money for families affected by knife crime. A statement on the organisation's website, now offline, read:
"It was the ‘coming to terms’ with the traumatic six weeks the family had just endured and the realisation of the heart rendering journey still ahead of them that pushed Kayleigh to start the Foundation.
"The drive, the need and the motivation came from her family’s experience, heartache and devastation."
But she is accused of plundering the money raised to spend on her own food and clothes that would be of no benefit to the foundation.
Pepper, who appeared under the name Kayleigh Towler, entered a plea of Not Guilty when she made her second appearance before Hull Crown Court.
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She denied fraud by abusing her position as a trustee of the Rich Foundation to make a gain for herself by using its money for her own purposes between July 1, 2018 and April 9 last year.
Prosecutor Felicity Hemlin said that the sum of money involved was £33,000.
Pepper started the Rich Foundation after her brother Richard, 25, known as Rich, was stabbed to death in a shocking street attack in Egton Street, east Hull, in 2015.
The man who delivered the fatal blow to Rich's heart, Daniel Flatley, was jailed for 11 years for manslaughter.
Pepper had become a leading anti-knife campaigner and had spoken out earlier this year after the tragic death of Corey Dobbe in Hull.
She has been allowed unconditional bail until the next hearing.
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