Former Mandurah Mustangs Junior Football Club secretary facing 200+ charges of stealing to plead not guilty

A woman accused of stealing from a junior Mandurah football club has flagged that she will fight the more than 200 charges she is facing. Leanne Lillian Withers, 59, appeared in Mandurah Magistrates Court on Friday on a total of 224 charges of stealing as a servant. Ms Withers faced 129 counts of the charge at her first court appearance on April 23, with 95 charges added on Friday. She is alleged to have stolen from the Mandurah Mustangs Junior Football Club while she was an employee there between March 15, 2019, and July 3, 2020, in Golden Bay. Ms Withers is listed on a club webpage as its secretary in 2022. Duty lawyer Claire Hay said she had been instructed that Ms Withers would plead not guilty to all the charges, with her pleas to be taken at another hearing. Magistrate Leanne Atkins said some of the charges had been remitted from the District Court. Ms Atkins said she was “not impressed” that the police officer who had entered the charges had “not bothered to specify the dates” of each alleged offence and was “sure” the dates “are clear” in the prosecution’s statement of material facts. She asked police prosecutor Sen. Const. Narelle Williams to include the individual dates of each alleged offence at the next hearing. Ms Withers was released on bail and will reappear in court on May 20, when she is expected to enter her pleas. The Mandurah Mustangs Junior Football Club has become the second local junior sport club to be rocked by allegations a staff member stole money this year. Former Peel Districts Little Athletics Centre president Cristy Maree Morrison pleaded guilty to 128 charges of stealing as a servant while at the club and was fined and sentenced to a seven-month conditionally suspended prison term on May 6.