Criminal given £134,000 loan with pay slips dating from time in jail

A CRIMINAL obtained a £134,000 mortgage loan using sample wage slips of his recent earnings which turned out to be fake because he was actually in prison at the time concerned.

But Leeds Crown Court heard yesterday Mandy Patrick Lowther’s dishonesty only came to light after the mortgage on the flat in Castle Lodge Gardens, Rothwell, Leeds, had been granted.

Mehran Nassiri, prosecuting, said Lowther applied to Pure Mortgages in March 2007 declaring his recent earnings for a valeting company as £20,796 a year.

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He also provided two wage slips for January 31, and 28 February, 2007. The application was electronically forwarded to HBOS who approved it and the funds were released in June.

The mortgage was then serviced regularly without problem but inquiries were made into the original application in 2009 after Lowther was arrested on suspicion of money laundering.

Mr Nassiri said inquiries then revealed Lowther, who received a nine-year-jail sentence in 1999 for a cash in transit robbery and two years in 2005 for handling, was transferred from Wealstun Prison, Wetherby to Everthorpe Prison, East Yorkshire in August 2006 and remained there until February 2007.

Customs and excise records also showed Lowther paid no tax for the tax year 2007 to 2008.

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Lowther, 30, who admitted fraud and converting criminal property, was given a 10-month prison sentence suspended for two years with 180 hours of unpaid work.

A confiscation hearing into his finances will be heard in the future.

Sentencing him Judge Kerry Macgill said he resorted to fraud because: “You and your partner wanted to get a foot on the property ladder and because of your background and history did not have a good credit rating.”

But looking back prior to the property crash the judge said many mortgage companies were the author of their own misfortune “being prepared to take almost any piece of paper to substantiate details.”