Mortgage cheats got millions from 'lax' banks

Munir Akhtar and Sajid Mahmood, both 43, made successful applications for mortgages totalling 2.3m between May 2004 and August 2006, using false pay slips and P60 forms.

The pair then used some of the cash to fund lavish refurbishments on their family homes, and also bought property in Dubai and luxury cars including a Ferrari and an Aston Martin.

They were among five people to go on trial for fraud in April but three defendants were cleared on the directions of a judge who said some banks had been willing to "loan money to a monkey or a mushroom".

Judge Robert Moore QC made his comments during a four-week case at Sheffield Crown Court which heard the five, including Akhtar and Mahmood, took advantage of a "rush to lend" in the early 2000s.

Despite the earlier acquittal, Akhtar and Mahmood's trial continued and they were convicted after a jury heard police found more than 330,000 in used bank notes at the Taj Mahal restaurant in Doncaster.

The restaurant was run jointly by the two men and officers had become suspicious about them and their families. When nobody claimed the cash after its discovery in August 2007, a bigger inquiry was launched.

The court heard both men had vastly over-inflated their wives' incomes to obtain huge loans, which had been secured on their own homes and buy-to-let properties.

Mahmood downloaded pay slips and P60s from the internet and filled them in to show the women earned more than 100,000 a year, when they were actually clerical workers at Doncaster Council.

The court heard Akhtar used the false details to repeatedly remortgage two houses he owned in Bawtry Road and Cantley Lane, Doncaster, obtaining loans from banks totalling 1.74m.

Mahmood falsely applied for a 90,000 re-mortgage on his own home in Checkstone Avenue, Doncaster, and also obtained loans worth 360,000 on buy-to-let properties using dishonest details.

The lenders included Northern Rock, the Woolwich, Birmingham Midshires and RBS and David Brooke, prosecuting, said each had been supplied with forged paperwork.

In mitigation for Akhtar, Anthony Barraclough said his client had been a "thoughtful, honest man until he got involved with banks who were willing to pour money into the pockets of borrowers."

"He is not an unscrupulous crook," he added.

"This is a man who wanted to advance his family's situation, but through stupidity succumbed to temptation like a child in a sweet shop."

Richard Clews, for Mahmood, said his client had heart

problems, had not set out to commit criminal acts, and had wanted to create a "pension pot" for his wife and two teenage children.

The court was told none of the financial institutions involved had made any official complaint, none had threatened to foreclose and in some cases had even continued to lend to the pair.

Sentencing Akhtar to a total of two years in jail, Judge Moore said his "outrageous" dishonest borrowing had allowed him to rebuild his Bawtry Road

bungalow in "magnificent splendour".

He said Mahmood had borrowed less but sentenced him to nine months in prison for his part in forging documents used in the deception.