A WOMAN who set herself up as an online events and bus tour co-ordinator is to stand trial accused of fleecing clients of more than £14,300 of their payments.

Katherine Patricia Clark block booked coaches to run tours to different events and venues, but took payments from customers, some of whom were said to have been left out of pocket.

Appearing at a plea hearing, at Durham Crown Court, she denied 38 counts of fraud by false representation, all alleged to have taken place between February 2015 and April 2016.

Each charge related to a different customer.

Clark, of Saltwell Street, Gateshead, also denied a single charge of forgery of a document purporting to be an invoice from Gold Crest Holidays, using it to induce others to accept it as genuine.

Asked by Judge Jonathan Carroll what issues her defence case would rely on, her counsel, Peter Walsh, said: “What she was doing was block booking coaches as the price would be cheaper and a venue would be located, and the same principle would apply

“At all times when the defendant was accepting money, she believed that the booking and the event would take place.

“That appears to be the general picture.”

The case was adjourned for a trial of up to three weeks, depending if all 38 customers named in the charges are required to give evidence.

It was provisionally pencilled in to take place at Teesside Crown Court, on a date to be confirmed in September next year.