I'm innocent, insists jailed head

A headmistress jailed for stealing up to £500,000 (€720,000) from her school to fund a lavish lifestyle has admitted being naive and stupid, but insists she is innocent.

Colleen McCabe, 51, was jailed for five years earlier this month after spending a fortune on jewellery, fine restaurants, holidays and champagne trips on the Orient Express. She even ran up a £7,000 (€10,000) bill on shoes.

But today she insisted she had paid the money back and much of the spending went on the children. Speaking from a prison in Britain, she told the BBC: "I didn't steal the money. I used the (corporate) credit card as I believed everybody had agreed and I paid the money back.

"I think I was very stupid in that I didn't get receipts. I loved the place and I didn't really think about it. I just wanted to make sure they had the best. I wasn't involved in any kind of fraud whatsoever. I didn't have these things, they were bought for the children."

McCabe said she had run up bills on shoes, but said they were for pupils. She had bought wine for parents' evenings because "to make tea we had to wash up afterwards".

She also admitted buying a trip on the Orient Express for her parents, but said she had paid the money back. McCabe, was described by a judge as a manipulative liar and bully who splashed out on herself while her students suffered.

She said the judge had disregarded "all the good things" that were said about her. Her trial had heard that as principal of the Catholic St John Rigby College in West Wickham, south east London, she ran a "tyrannical" regime and led a life of luxury that "would have made Imelda Marcos proud".

The spending spree left the school library virtually bookless, children were left to shiver in freezing, rat-infested classrooms and teachers had to do the cleaning themselves. The college was so hard-up it only had one crucifix. But she was adamant classrooms and pupils were not neglected.

She said she had not been able to persuade the jury of her innocence because it came down to "whether you are liked or not". She added: "When everybody goes on, you begin to think 'well maybe I did, maybe it was me'. But I know I did not do it, I didn't take the money.

"I might have been naive and stupid and I think most of all too trusting. But I didn't take the money, I don't have the money. I did not concentrate on the finances perhaps as I should. That is my fault."

Her solicitors are appealing over the length of the sentence.