A Major General has become the most-senior officer to be convicted at a court martial since 1815 after he was found guilty of fraudulently claiming £48,000.
Major General Nick Welch, 57, claimed the funds to send two of his children to £37,000-a-year and £22,500-a-year private boarding schools in Dorset, Bulford Military Court heard.
The two-star general – who left the military in 2018 – had applied for the allowance on the basis that both he and his wife lived in military quarters in London, and therefore were not close to children’s schools.
But they in fact spent most of their time at their £800,000 Dorset home.
Maj Gen Welch had denied fraud but was today convicted of abusing the Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) in claiming the cash.
He will be sentenced ‘accordingly’ to the severity of the fraud he committed, a Ministry of Defence spokesperson said.
Major General Nick Welch, 57, claimed £48,000 to send two of his children to the £37,000-a-year Clayesmore School and £22,500-a-year Hanford School, both in Dorset, Bulford Military Court heard
The 57-year-old, pictured in Afghanistan with then-Prime Minister David Cameron, denied fraud
Maj Gen Welch – who has a glittering career and an OBE – is the most senior officer to face a court martial since 1815, when a Lieutenant General was convicted during the Napoleonic wars.
Maj Gen Welch was Assistant Chief of the General Staff based at the Ministry of Defence’s headquarters in London.
He claimed the CEA to allow two of his children to stay at £37,000-a-year Clayesmore School and £22,500-a-year Hanford School between December 2015 and February 2017.
The payment – which covers 90 per cent of fees – is aimed at allowing children of service personnel to remain at the same schools to enable their serving parent to be accompanied by their spouse as they are posted to different locations.
He claimed he couldn’t afford the school fees by himself, even on his ‘lofty’ salary of £120,000 a year.
Meanwhile his wife claimed the neighbour who reported them must have done so as he was ‘daunted’ by her husband’s rank.
Following five hours of deliberations, Maj Gen Welch gave no reaction and stood stony faced as a panel of board members found him guilty of fraud.
The four-week trial heard the general had ‘deliberately manipulated the numbers’ to mislead military police about how much time wife Charlotte Welch had spent in London from December 2015 to February 2017.
To conform to the allowance rules, freelance consultant Mrs Welch, 54, could only spend 90 days away from the London address in a year.
The court heard that Maj Gen Welch was reported to the Army by Colonel Jeremy Lamb because he and other ‘irate’ neighbours never saw him at their London home.
‘Frustrated’ Col Lamb said he never saw the senior officer or his wife at the London property in the 15 month period in which the married couple were supposed to be living there.
The court heard that – the day after the complaint was made – Mrs Welch rushed to London.
She messaged her husband stating she had arrived at their home and joked that she had ‘beeped her horn very loudly all the way in’.
She added that she would be ‘out and about and very sociable all week’.
Mrs Welch blamed the spouse of a lower ranked officer for blowing the whistle on them, messaging a friend saying: ‘Perhaps they are daunted by Nick’s rank, all of their husbands are two or three ranks below.’
During the trial, Maj Gen Welch denied he had asked his wife to ‘make an impression’ on the neighbours and insisted that they believed they were still within the 90 day rule.
He told the court he thought he satisfied the ‘underlying principles’ and ‘spirit’ of the allowance rules as long as he and his wife ‘endeavoured to be together’.
He said in his evidence: ‘We didn’t believe that we were outside the [allowance] rules.
‘At the time we didn’t know that spending more time away from the [London home] put us outside the rules, that was our genuine belief.
‘She placed herself with me, she tried to be with me as often as possible to accompany me as much as possible.
‘That was my understanding at the time [that as long as Mrs Welch was with him it counted as serving accompanied].’
His calculations of how many days his wife had spent away from London were shown to the court, but prosecutor Sarah Clarke QC said they were ‘significantly lower’ than the true number.
The number would have been clear from the various calendars and diaries available to him.
She told Maj Gen Welch: ‘You deliberately manipulated the numbers to reduce them as much as you thought you could get away with.
‘You and your wife were trying to do all you could to knock these numbers down.’
Maj Gen Welch had denied one count of fraud.
Due to his high rank, the court had difficulties trying to find a six or seven person panel senior enough to hear the case.
Court martial protocol states the president of the panel should be at least two ranks higher than the defendant, requiring a full General for this case.
Maj Gen Welch (pictured) had denied fraud but was today convicted of abusing the Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) in claiming the cash
Maj Gen Welch (pictured in 2014) was Assistant Chief of the General Staff based at the Ministry of Defence’s headquarters in London
However the panel was instead made up of a retired Major General, a Rear Admiral, a retired Air Vice Marshall, two Commodores and a Brigadier.
There was even a civilian member of the board – a civil servant – which is highly uncommon in court martial proceedings.
An MoD spokeswoman said: ‘If a service person has been reported to the Royal Military Police because it is believed they have committed a crime it is only right that it is investigated fully and the results of the investigation are presented to the Service Prosecuting Authority.
‘It has been proven in this case that the retired Major General Nicholas Welch OBE did commit fraud and therefore he will be sentenced accordingly.’