Solicitor jailed over fraud

A solicitor who swindled building societies out of nearly pounds 600,000 to "prop up" her debt-ridden practice, was jailed for three years yesterday. Anita Bose, 56, of Golders Green, north London, helped by one of her brothers and her accountant during the two-year-long fraud, would have got away with almost pounds 1m if all her "entirely fictitious" mortgage applications had succeeded.

Southwark Crown Court heard all the cash was used to "plug" a huge deficit in the client account of the north London practice of Lipman Bose. The brother who helped her in the swindle, Shankar Das, 58, was convicted of three similar deceptions at an earlier trial and was jailed for 12 months. Accountant, Dilip Chakrabarti, 54, of Edgware, Middlesex, who was found guilty of five deceptions, received a similar sentence.