A SCHOOL staff member who cheated donors out of £19,000 by pretending she needed alternative treatment for skin cancer has been ordered to pay back the money that was donated to her Just Giving page.

After out-of-court discussions today Friday, February 8, it was agreed former Sutton Academy staff member Keera Brayford had benefited by £19,237 in donations but that the money eligible for refund to donors amounted to £10,515.

Brayford did not have cancer and even fooled her own parents and other relatives into believing that she did – so she could use the charity donations to pay off her debts.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that that sum is being held by Just Giving after she set up a page to trick people into sending her money by claiming she had three types of skin cancer and three muscular cancer tumours which were not responding to conventional treatment.

Just Giving is going to repay the donors, said Chris Taylor, prosecuting.

The 25-year-old from Cedar Road, Whiston, Merseyside, was not present in court but had been sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended for two years in November after pleading guilty to fraud between March and September 2018, with four similar offences taken into consideration.

The sentencing judge told her then: “You behaved despicably”.

As well as the jail sentence, she imposed a year long curfew between 7pm to 6 am and ordered her to carry our 35 days rehabilitation activities.

Brayford claimed she had invented the ailment in fake sick notes and hospital appointments as her employers would not give her time off for appointments for sexually transmitted disease investigations.

Brayford had even searched on Google about “how to defraud employer about being ill.”

Her bosses became suspicious about the notes and found that she had been using a computer at the school to manufacture the bogus medical notes and appointments and her web of lies began to untangle.

Meanwhile she had claimed on her Facebook page that she had skin cancer and set up the Just Giving page and various fund raising events were held - some taking money away from genuine good causes.

Just Giving still has the £10,515 donations it received but donations by four individuals, totalling, £8,722, were paid directly to her and have not been returned to the duped donors.