Ex-bursar stole pounds 400,000 from Royal Academy

The former bursar at the Royal Academy of Arts yesterday pleaded guilty to stealing nearly pounds 400,000 from the institution. Trevor Clark, 44, also admitted plundering his local village church-restoration fund of more than pounds 29,000.

The Southwark Crown Court Judge Michael Harris told the bespectacled father of four, of Watton-at-Stone, Hertfordshire, that he wanted the benefit of social and psychiatric reports before sentencing him on 10 March. Allowing Mr Harris bail, the judge warned him that ordering reports did not mean that he would escape a custodial sentence. Clark, who earned pounds 30,000 a year, used some of the money to convert his cottage into a five- bedroom house and send two of his children to a private school.

The Academy's former controller Kenneth Tanner said: "He always seemed such a quiet, responsible, completely trustworthy family man. We are all stunned."