By union corruption investigators former health service union boss Kathy Jackson has been charged with 70 theft and deception Police on Wednesday said the 49-year-old NSW woman has been charged with 70 counts of theft and deception related offences. And for this charge she will appear in the Melbourne Magistrates court on 19 September. Jackson was charged by Taskforce Heracles, a joint Victoria and Australian Federal Police operation investigating matters arising from the Royal Commission into Trade Union Corruption and Governance.

Last August she was ordered to pay the HSU about $1.4 million, after the Federal Court found she misappropriated union money to pay for travel, groceries, entertainment and even her divorce. Jackson became a national figure after she blew the whistle on her predecessor, former Labor MP Craig Thomson, and former HSU general secretary Michael Williamson in 2011.

Williamson was jailed for at least five years for leeching the union of almost $1 million and recruiting others to hinder a police investigation. Thomson was fined $25,000 after he was convicted of 13 counts of theft following cash withdrawals he made from a HSU bank account between 2003 and 2007.

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