A CALLOUS nurse embezzled thousands of pounds from a disabled children’s charity to fund his out of control gambling habit.

Alan Thorburn was volunteering with the fundraising for the Dreamflight charity when he began transferring the organisation’s cash into his own bank account.

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Thorburn, from Tranent, East Lothian, was confronted by charity managers after sums of cash raised by public fundraising events had gone missing.

And when interviewed by the police the 40-year-old nurse claimed he wanted to pay the stolen funds back and “asked for forgiveness”.

Dreamflight is a charity that takes children with a serious illness or disability on “holidays of a lifetime” to Orlando in Florida and state the excursions can be “life-changing” for the youngsters involved.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told Thorburn was approached to help out with the charity by a former work colleague in 2014 as he had previously worked as a nurse in a children’s hospice.

He was interviewed and accepted to join the Dreamflight organisation and soon volunteered to help out with fundraising activities and manage the charity’s local area bank account.

Thorburn and a second volunteer opened up a bank account with Barclays to deposit the fundraising cash but discrepancies were later discovered in February 2018.

He was confronted about cash transfers into a second account by a charity manager and he was said to have “given some answers but then stopped” all communication.

Prosecutor Gillian Koran said the charity’s bank account was checked and it was found “most of the money in the account was thereafter transferred into an account in the name of the accused”.

The court was told Thorburn was asked to transfer the money back to the charity’s bank account and and he paid in the sum of £9700.

Ms Koren said: “He explained he had difficulties gambling and that he had taken out a loan to pay it back and that he is attending a gambling support group.”

The fiscal said Thorburn had taken a total of £17,106 from Dreamflight for his own use which is the total amount still outstanding to the charity.

The court was told when interviewed by the police Thorburn had said: “If I was asked I want to pay it back – I’d ask for forgiveness.”

Thorburn pleaded guilty to embezzling £17,106 while a volunteer with the Dreamflight charity, based in Buckinghamshire, between January 2015 and March 2018 when he appeared at court yesterday.

Sheriff Charles Walls said: “You have pleaded guilty to a charge of embezzlement, it is a serious charge.

“As suggested the court will need background reports before deciding on the appropriate sentence.”

The sheriff released Thorburn on bail and deferred sentence for social work reports and a restriction of liberty order assessment to next month.

The Dreamflight charity has been approached for comment.

Dreamflight was co-founded in 1986 by Patricia Pearce and Derek Pereira who previously worked with British Airways and had helped raise money for underprivileged children.

The charity’s first trip to Orlando took place in November 1987 and to date more than 6,000 children have now experienced their ‘“holiday of a lifetime”.

The charity take around 190 children from across the UK on board Dreamflight’s privately-hired aircraft along with a volunteer team of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and other helpers look after the children for 10 days.

Since 2021, Dreamflight has also taken small groups of seriously ill and disabled children to fully-accessible activity centres in the UK.