Melbourne High business manager Frances Walshe pleads guilty to stealing from school

A business manager at elite Melbourne High has confessed to skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars from the school’s books.

An esteemed business manager at elite Melbourne High School in South Yarra has admitted to skimming $400,00 from the school’s books. Picture: David Geraghty

An esteemed business manager at an elite Melbourne high school has confessed to stealing more than $400,000 from the school, claiming she had admitted her guilt “since day one”.

Frances Walshe fronted the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday where she pleaded guilty to 10 charges of theft and obtaining financial advantage by deception from Melbourne High school.

The 65-year-old’s offending spanned more than a decade, with charge sheets indicating she began to steal from school accounts in January 2012.
Between 2016 and 2021, Walshe swindled more than $77,000 into her personal account by altering the details on payee invoices.
A total of $435,542 was stolen, court documents reveal.

It is not yet clear if any of the stolen funds had been recovered by the school.

Six further charges were struck out after Walshe cut a deal with prosecutors.


It is understood the former finance manager’s offending was discovered after school officials launched an investigation, lasting several months, following financial anomalies with the school accounts.


Walshe, who oversaw the prestigious school’s $20 million annual budget, resigned from her position at the prestigious government school in November, as revealed by the Herald Sun last month.

She appeared in court remotely from her home in Morwell on Wednesday, wearing a white knitted jumper.


Asked how she pleaded to the charges, Walshe responded: “Guilty, your honour.”


“And I have done since day one,” she added.

Defence lawyer Anna Balmer asked the court for additional time ahead of a pre-sentence hearing to prepare psychological assessments and reports which will be relied upon at the hearing.


She will front the County Court in February next year before learning her sentence.


During her tenure at Melbourne High, the admitted fraudster was praised in the school’s annual report for maintaining “the school finances and records in a most efficient and effective manner”.

She had also been on school council as minute taker and had oversight of a number of school projects involving the Melbourne High School Foundation, the school’s Building Fund and the Annual Giving Appeal.

Walshe is one of 23 Victorian staffers that have been suspended by the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) this year so far.