Jane Edwards, the manager at the Sheriff Centre – and where the donation plate was stolen from

A WOMAN who looked like she was making a donation to a West Hampstead charity was actually stealing their card reader device.

Workers at the Sherriff Centre, which is based in St James Church, saw the suspected thief hovering by their “digital donation plate” last Friday, but, after looking back through the CCTV, saw she had unclipped it from a plinth near the entrance before stowing it in her bag.

“It wasn’t thought to be a high risk item to steal so it’s really unusual,” Sheriff Centre manager Jane Edwards said.

“Having it by the door enables us to collect donations for stuff we need to do like the huge repairs in the church. We’ve got to replace all the flooring, things like the guttering, the roof, lots of high-level stuff that needs scaffolding and things like that. We have a lot of live music on Saturday nights.

“We regularly have 200 people in as we do Sofar Sound events, and they usually donate quite a lot.”

The Sherriff Centre is an independent charity that runs a food surplus project and a debt advice service from the church. A post office, cafe and event space in the church operate as its trading subsidiary.

The digital donation plate allowed visitors to choose specifically what they wanted to donate to, from church candles to building upkeep.

Ms Edwards: “[Digital donation plates] are the sort of thing you see in cathedrals because so many people don’t carry cash anymore. It’s a really clever way of doing it.

“We’ve got big fundraising campaigns, as we are responsible for the upkeep of the building.

“It’s frustrating. You’re trying to do some good in the community and someone comes in and takes that and it’s a massive cost for us.

She added: “It’s over £550 for us to replace it so I’ve started a fundraiser. It’s really frustrating because it’s not a particularly great thing for people to want to donate to as it’s just replacing something that’s already there.”

Where the device was stolen, Ms Edwards has put a CCTV photo of the woman. She is not known to the centre, but Ms Edwards said she felt confident that the police will be able to find the culprit using the CCTV images.

The Sherriff Centre’s food project collects surplus food from the community and local businesses, which it redistributes to people.
It provides emergency food parcels for anyone experiencing food poverty.

You can donate to the Sherriff Centre’s fundraiser by visiting https://donate.giveasyoulive.com/campaign/donation-plate-theft