Five jailed over £9m mortgage application scam

The investigation found that Peter Gay, Kenneth Bacon, Malcom Pow, Michael Bishop and Supriya Misra were involved in submitting at least 80 fraudulent applications to several high street lenders from January 2009 to September 2013.

Over half of the applications were completed resulting in loans in excess of £4 million being granted. Applications that did not complete sought the lending of funds totalling in excess of a further £5 million.

The group, which included Robert Maxwell and Omer Mian who will be sentenced later this month, used false payslips, false accounts and false employer references in order to deceive lenders into approving the requests.

Kenneth Bacon was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Michael Bishop was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment while Peter Gay received three years and nine months’ imprisonment.  Supriya Misra was ordered to serve 33 months’ imprisonment and Malcom Pow to 26 months’ imprisonment.

Gemma Vincent of the CPS said: “This was a complicated case with a considerable amount of evidence to present.  The defendants were professional people who used their status and knowledge for criminal activities.

“Fraud such as this can undermine the economic system upon which we all depend. The CPS will continue to work with the investigating authorities to tackle those who seek to manipulate financial procedures.”