Ex-policeman jailed for mortgage fraud

A former police officer who was involved in a multi million pound mortgage fraud was jailed for five years nine months today.

Charles Overend, 47, was told by Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith at London's Southwark Crown Court: "These were multiple frauds, which were intended to make you enormously rich. They were motivated by simple greed."

The judge told the former Metropolitan Police Detective Constable from Chertsey, Surrey, he made 23 fraudulent mortgage applications which resulted in loans of around £3.7 million.

"These were part of a property portfolio which you, a man earning a comparatively modest salary, hoped would create a hugely profitable alternative income.

"You had no doubt realised how easy it might be to carry out these frauds, by lying.

"Once you had seen how easy it was to purchase a property you did so fraudulently from the outset.

"No doubt you thought the property market would never collapse, you thought the profits you would be making would be sufficient to meet the instalments. But you were wrong."

The Crown put losses at between £250,000 and £500,000, the defence put the figure a bit lower, he said.

Overend had been an exemplary police officer for 23 years, and had been allowed to resign, the judge said.

He sentenced him to five years six months imprisonment for six counts of obtaining money by deception and three months consecutive for possessing a false identity - which he used only to open a bank account, which he never used.

Overend's brother Jonathan, 46, of Harrogate, was sentenced to 12 months for one count of obtaining money by deception, which he admitted.

The judge told him: "You faced one count, but one in which you allowed your brother to obtain loans of £1 million."

Carrol Thompson, 48, a solicitor's clerk, of Billingham, Cleveland, who pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy to defraud, received 50 weeks' imprisonment, suspended for two years, on condition she perform 200 hours unpaid work.