Cartwright - nicknamed ?Dodgy Dave? - spent the charity?s money on cars, family holidays, new carpets and riding lessons for his daughter, a court heard. Sentencing him, Judge Toby Hooper QC told him: ?The essence of your fraud offending is the abuse of the power and privilege which you enjoyed as a respected local government leader.?
At the time he was jailed in 2009, Miss Smith said: ?I have known Mr Cartwright for years and I am extremely disappointed. He will have to face the consequences of his actions.?
Yet within months of his release, Cartwright, 54, had registered Boost Associates Ltd jointly with Mr Timney, 48. The company - slogan ?Understanding government, supporting business, the third sector and individuals? - provides advice to charities and other clients on how to raise funds, lobby politicians and deal with journalists.
Weeks after its launch, Cartwright stood down as a director and was replaced by Mr Timney?s mother Heather, 72.
Cartwright, now working as a driver, told the Telegraph he had left amicably, adding: ?I had just come out of prison and I needed a job, but It was not the sort of thing that I wanted to be involved with.?
The involvement of a convicted fraudster in the business is the latest embarrassment to befall Miss Smith. While she was home secretary, she was revealed to have claimed on her parliamentary expenses for the cost of pay-per-view pornographic films watched by her husband.
She was also found to have designated a room in her sister?s London house as her ?main home?, allowing her to claim a second-home allowance on her Redditch property.
On July 28, two serving prisoners from HMP Hewell turned up at the couple?s house to redecorate it, while on a scheme requiring them to do work that benefited ?the whole community?.
Miss Smith used a radio show she was hosting to mount a defence of her actions, saying that the prisoners had only done the work because they ?didn?t have anything else on?. Batchley Support Group, which organised the resettlement scheme, said it had received payment-in-kind from Miss Smith in the form of a donation of plants for a pond on the prison grounds. Cartwright was first elected in 1986 as a Labour councillor in Redditch - the area for which Miss Smith became MP in 1997. He led the council between 2002 and 2005, and has also served as mayor.
In 1998, he helped found Step Out Drop In (SODI), a charity to help homeless youngsters.
In February 2009 he pleaded guilty to fraud. Worcester Crown Court heard that he took �24,695 from the charity to spend on himself and his family, forging signatures on charity cheques between 2003 and 2005.
He also dishonestly obtained money for the charity from various sources: �21,118 from the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, paid to cover the wages of a member of staff who did not exist; �37,350 from Redditch council, some of which was then spent on work at the charity?s premises; and �5,000 from a charitable trust, secured with a false builder?s invoice.
Prosecuter Mark Cotter told the court that Cartwright was a ?conman?, adding: ?By dishonestly obtaining for SODI he was quite literally putting money into the bank he was stealing from. He was creating a cash cow so that he could milk it.?
Antoine Muller, his barrister, told the court in mitigation that Cartwright?s intentions had been honest when he joined the charity. By the time of his sentencing he had already repaid two-thirds of the money taken, and had a number of debts from loans and credit cards.
Sentencing Cartwright, the judge told him: ?Frauds like yours will be detected and punished. I trust your sentence today will bring closure for those who felt tainted by your actions.?
The charity collapsed in 2005 with estimated debts of �389,000, due to in part to Cartwright?s actions.
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