St Andrews Uni student embezzled £5,700 from a charity ball she organised

A student at the Uni of St Andrews has been fined £1,600 after she embezzled nearly £6,000 from a charity ball.

When Amy Fisken was in her final year of St Andrews, she on the committee to organise the House of Horror Halloween ball from 2019-2021. It was advertised that all proceeds from the dress-up party would go to for Impact Arts, a charity which helps disadvantaged people in Scotland to engage with creative fields. Amy Fisken initially transferred nearly £9,000 of money that students had paid for tickets into her own bank account. She then returned £3,000 of this, which is why it wasn’t included in the criminal charges.

Board members from Impact Arts chased Amy Fisken for the money six times, then eventually contacted the police on 11th September 2019. Amy Fisken was first arrested on 7th December 2020. The case was delayed for over a year because Amy didn’t turn up. A warrant was issued for her arrest.

She dropped out of St Andrews while the police were investigating her, then got a job at her parents’ luxury interior design company, Fisken at Ampersand Interiors. The money has now been repaid to the charity.

Her solicitor John Boyle explained that Amy Fisken’s parents could have paid this amount of money back “without any difficulties”, but she chose not to ask them.

The University of St Andrews
(Credit: Oliverkeenan by Creative Commons)

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He said, “She did make considerable efforts to obtain money to repay this. With the Covid lockdown she was unable to obtain employment. Her intention had always been to repay. Initially she spent some of the funds, matters snowballed and with the embarrassment she faced, she buried her head in the sand.

“She managed to obtain employment. Her parents are in court. They were not aware of this and have been supportive. If she had gone to them they would have been able to repay the money without any difficulties, but she felt she could not do that.”

Amy Fisken now works for her parents’ luxury interior design company, Ampersand Interiors.

The solicitor also argued that the stress of Amy Fisken’s third-year coursework had made the situation worse. He said, “It was exacerbated by being her final year of studies, the difficulties she had completing her course work – then she was required to take on additional responsibilities on the committee organising this ball. With the benefit of hindsight, she realised she was dealing with too much and that affected her mental health, to such an extent she was unable to complete her studies at St Andrews.”

The sheriff John Rafferty said, “This is a matter where you were in a position of trust in connection with a charitable activity and you thoroughly abused that position to embezzle a substantial sum of money.