Adviser and family of five escape jail for £1.5m mortgage fraud

Northern Irish Businessman John Gaile set up the scam with members of his family and solicitor John Hickey, which involved applying for mortgages using inflated purchase prices for 26 business and residential properties. The majority of mortgages sought were obtained using the services of the Gaile family's adviser William Larmour. Unaware of the scam, banks and building societies offered greater loans than would otherwise have been available to Gaile who benefitted by having to contribute less from his own funds. In a period from September 1995 until April 2008 Gaile sold the prop...