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An alcoholic vicar stole more than £100,000 in funeral fees from the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool and blew it on booze.

Rev Michael Fry became one of the most well-known clergymen in the city and the chaplain at Liverpool Women’s Hospital over a 25-year career.

But when the number of funerals he conducted rocketed, he failed to declare the extra money he was receiving from funeral directors.

Liverpool Crown Court heard he was allowed to retain some of the money, but only if it did not take him above his annual stipend of £22,000.

He failed to submit any financial returns to the diocese for nearly eight years from 2005 to 2013 - helping himself to £107,673 in total.

When the diocese finally realised what was happening, Fry confessed to having spent the money mainly on alcohol, plus books and travel.

He admitted eight counts of theft by an employee but was today spared jail after a judge said his positive contributions to society outweighed the bad.

Simon Duncan, prosecuting, said Fry, of Aigburth Vale, Sefton Park , joined the diocese in 1989 and in 1991 became a team vicar with St Luke in the City.

The diocese was “completely relaxed” about the financial arrangement regarding funerals, as it expected honesty, and assumed he was still carrying out 20 to 25 a year.

However, Mr Duncan said the Bishop of Liverpool wrote to Fry in 2010 about concerns over his “excessive alcohol consumption”.

He added: “Rumours of inappropriate behaviour by the defendant came to the attention of The Archdeacon Ricky Panter.”

Fry met with the Archdeacon in November 2013, when he claimed he carried out 15 to 18 funerals a year.

He later revealed he had conducted 27, but would not sign a document to confirm this number, which actually turned out to be 49.

He resigned in January 2014, after admitting conducting at least 1,250 extra parochial funerals.

Admissions he made to police during interviews that year led to him being sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Mr Duncan accepted a long delay in the case coming to court was “highly significant”, but said the investigation was complex.

He said church records were in a poor state and the relaxed approach meant the diocese was to some extent “the victim of its own failings”.

It said the “huge breakdown in trust” impacted on everyone within its clergy and that the money could have funded up to four full time posts.

Martine Snowdon, defending, said her client did not initially set out to steal but failed to “scrupulously” declare the increase.

She said: “He’s let himself down, he’s let his peers down, he’s let the people he served in the community down.

“This man has dedicated his life to the church and to great work and it is a great shame he has allowed this to happen.”

Ms Snowdon said after Fry’s parents died in 2002 and 2007 he suffered from depression and turned to alcohol.

She said he had now got his life back together and started helping the homeless voluntarily at The Whitechapel Centre.

Judge Elizabeth Nicholls said Fry provided “enormous support” and supported many people in his career, adding: “Unfortunately you had your own demons.”

She said: “It is of course a great tragedy to see a man of so obvious ability, ending his chosen vocation in this manner in the dock of a criminal court.

“Your conduct will undoubtedly taint and tarnish the reputation of the church.”

However, she said he had taken responsibility, overcome his problems and endured a long wait to learn his fate.

Judge Nicholls said: “There comes a time in a man’s life when he is entitled to say ‘measure the good I have done against the harm I have done’.

“I have no doubt the good you have done in the community and continue to do outweighs the harm.”

She handed him 20 months in prison, suspended for two years, plus 200 hours of unpaid work.