Gang jailed for £5m mortgage fraud

A gang of seven people who conned mortgage lenders out of nearly £5m in mortgage fraud has received a jail sentence for a total of eleven years.

Following a five-week trial in March, David Carter, mortgage adviser at Network Financial Services in Rotherham, was found guilty of six counts of obtaining mortgages by deception and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Accountant John Wright was found guilty on seven counts and was also sentenced to three years' imprisonment, after compiling false accounts for Carter to use in fake mortgage applications.

Five other defendants, one of which was ex-Rotherham United director David Costin, were found to have received fraudulent mortgages for properties in Rotherham.

Of the other five defendants, three of the four received jail sentences from nine months to two years. One was spared immediate jail and given a suspended sentence and 160 hours unpaid work, as he had already repaid all the money and had borrowed the smallest amount, at £30,000.

Only two of the defendants' cases resulted in mortgage lenders suffering a loss: in one case the loss amounted to between £15,000 and £20,000; and in the other, between £50,000 and £100,000.

A spokesman for the South Yorkshire Police's money laundering team said the sentencing was appropriate to the ­criminality involved.

"These individuals are now subject to confiscation proceedings, where their benefits from crime will be valued by the court and will be required to be repaid. Any benefits which are not repaid may be punishable by further imprisonment."