A BOGUS charity organiser whose collectors took money from people on the streets of York has been jailed for nine months.

Restaurant owner Mark Phillips, helped by his wife, Philippa Vanessa Phillips, organised several collectors with tins and laminated ID badges to collect money for "Fundraisers UK", said Simon Hickey, prosecuting, at York Crown Court.

They were defying an order by the Charity Commissioners not to collect money, as it was not a charity, and collected £1,300 in ten days in Fulford and on Hull Road in York, outside Sainsbury and Homebase stores in Doncaster, and elsewhere in Yorkshire.

The money was paid into a bank account, which the couple treated as their personal account, said Mr Hickey.

"Those who have the responsibility for collecting for charity or having responsibility for those collections have a sacred, not just legal, obligation to ensure that money is handed over. I regard this as a very serious offence indeed," said the Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman.

"Offences like this undermine public confidence in charity donations."

He yesterday jailed Mark Phillips, 35, for nine months, and ordered Philippa Phillips, 37, to do 180 hours' community punishment. He also confiscated the £317 found in their collectors' tins when they were arrested, and ordered them together to pay the prosecution's £610 costs and up to £3,000 each towards their defence costs.

Both pleaded guilty to theft.

They now live in Chagford, Devon, where they run a restaurant and hope to run a catering van.

The judge regretted that it was impossible to hand back the money they had collected to the people who had given it.

Mr Hickey said Philippa Phillips marshalled the collectors at Doncaster Railway Station and drove them to out-of-town or distant sites, possibly to avoid police noticing them, between April 10 and April 20, 2000.

After their initial arrest in April 2000 and release on bail, the couple moved to an antiques and coffee shop in Devon.

For the couple, Guy Wyatt said they had collected genuinely for Fundraisers UK while pending its registration. But they continued to collect after the registration was refused.

They had used sites near big stores because they were good collecting points, not to avoid arousing official suspicions.

Withdrawals from the Fundraisers UK account had been to buy petrol for the collection journeys, not for their own use.

They had suffered great anxiety because of the time taken to bring the case to court.

Updated: 10:21 Thursday, April 29, 2004