Former Small Firms’ Association (SFA) director Sven Spollen-Behrens has avoided jail after admitting the theft of €20,500.
Mr Spollen-Behrens pleaded guilty last November to stealing a total of €20,500 from Sandyford and Dún Laoghaire Business Improvement Districts (BID) in 2017.
Judge Martin Nolan sentenced him to two years in prison on Monday in Dublin Circuit Court, but suspended the sentence on condition that Mr Spollen-Behrens be of good behaviour for that time.
The court heard that the fraud involved more than €40,000 but Mr Spollen-Behrens of Killiney Hill Road, Killiney, Co Dublin, only personally benefited from €20,500, which he used to pay his children’s private school fees.
He wrongly transferred the rest of the money involved from Sandyford BID to Dún Laoghaire BID between May and August 2017, when he worked for both organisations.
He did this to maintain Dún Laoghaire’s cash flow, as many of its members were not paying the levies on which it relied for funding, on time. He did not himself benefit from this, lawyers told the court.
Mr Spollen Behrens repaid €48,000 with the aid of a loan from his father-in-law following a meeting in October 2017 with members of the Sandyford BID board, where he was diverting the cash to himself and Dún Laoghaire. The repayment left him more than €20,000 out of pocket, lawyers said.
His defence counsel acknowledged that Mr Spollen-Behrens made a “completely improper and criminal decision” at a time when he was under enormous financial pressure, and has deeply regretted it ever since.
“He made a seismic error and the aftershocks of that seismic error are still accruing five years later,” said the lawyer.
Counsel added that the businessman had no previous convictions. “He has been a good man, a good partner, a good husband and a good friend to a great many people,” he pointed out.
Mr Spollen-Behrens resigned as director of the SFA, an affiliate of employers’ lobby group Ibec, in October. He pleaded guilty to both offences in court the following month.
Originally from Germany, he met his Irish wife while working in Brussels. They moved to Dublin in 2010, when the couple used their savings to establish an opticians’ business, which failed three years later.
The court heard that the defendant worked for Dún Laoghaire BID from 2014 to May 2017, when the Sandyford organisation recruited him. He agreed to straddle both groups while Dún Laoghaire sought a replacement.
Businesses found BIDs and fund them through yearly levies to work on boosting and promoting their areas.
Partly as a result of the opticians’ failure, Mr Spollen-Behrens faced several financial pressures during 2017, including demands for fees from his children’s school. He diverted two cheques for €10,250 each to cover this expense.
After he had left to join the SFA in August 2017, a Sandyford Business Improvement District board member noticed that a cheque for €10,250 had been altered.
At that point, the organisation was also concerned at its former chief executive’s unwillingness to relinquish a laptop that contained its accounts.
This led to the October meeting where Mr Spollen-Behrens fully admitted diverting the funds. He sought four weeks to repay the money. However, the group gave him 48 hours.
Judge Nolan stressed that Mr Spollen-Behrens should not have taken money from the business organisations, but agreed that a jail term was not appropriate.
He took the businessman’s early guilty plea, co-operation with the garda and the fact that he had repaid €48,000 into the account when passing sentence.
Mr Spollen-Behrens did not comment following Monday’s hearing.
