A former headmistress of a Catholic Church kindergarten who claimed she was 'in a culture of secret profit-making in the school and whole diocese' was spared jail yesterday for submitting false accounts and over-enrolling pupils. Ip Yuen-fai, 52, formerly of St Margaret Mary's Catholic Kindergarten in Happy Valley, was given a one-year sentence suspended for a year and fined $10,000 after she admitted 12 counts of false accounting and over-enrolling between December 1998 and June last year. Ip, who was initially accused of embezzling $1.45 million of school money, denied stealing the money but admitted submitting false accounts. The original 14 theft charges, which Ip had denied, were left on file, meaning they could be pursued at a later date if a court order were issued. The District Court had heard Ip, who had worked for the preschool for 14 years, understated the amount of collected tuition fees. She admitted she submitted the fees were $7.5 million, $1 million less than the amount actually collected, and retained $960,000 of the money. She had also admitted overcharging students for various other expenses. Ip claimed her reason was to conceal over-enrolment and denied she gained for herself. Sentencing Ip, Judge Alan Wright accepted she had no intention of keeping the money. 'It was fully in line with what her superior was doing before and at the time of the offence, but she did it on a far larger scale,' Judge Wright said. The court heard the school had over-enrolled students for more than 10 years and that the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong was unaware of the problem. Defence lawyer Rupert Spicer said there was a 'culture of secret profit-making prevailing in the school and the whole diocese'. The court had heard the Education Department went to the kindergarten on June 23 last year and found it had enrolled 64 students more than allowed. Ip told her superior the next day she had retained funds. The superior later went to the police.