Woman’s reward for bank fraud evidence
‘TREASURE TROVE’ OF DOCUMENTS DISCOVERED IN BIN
A WOMAN who found ‘a treasure trove’ of crucial evidence dumped in her wheelie bin will receive a reward of £500 after it led to the jailing of two former bank business managers.
A total of eleven people were sentenced back in 2016 following a lengthy police inquiry which began after the woman handed over the bin-liner full of banking documents.
Former NatWest business managers James Clegg, from Huddersfield, and Bradford man Anzar Hussain were both jailed for their roles in the conspiracy which involved the authorisation for bogus business loans and the use of stolen identities of innocent people at the Bradford city centre branch.
Hussain, 43, of Rayner Avenue, was jailed for six years and three months after a judge described him as the ‘leading light’ in the scam while his socalled ‘banking buddy’ Clegg, 34, of Storths Road, was sentenced to four years for processing more than a dozen fraudulent business loans.
Bradford Crown Court heard previously that the conspiracy succeeded in defrauding the bank out of £350,000, but a further six loan applications worth another £150,000 did not go through.
Nine other people were also sentenced following the police inquiry into the scam.
During the trial of some of the defendants, prosecutor Chris Smith described the documentation left in the bin back in April 2012 as ‘a treasure trove’ of evidence and in a submission to Judge Jonathan Rose he said that without the public-spirited actions of the woman the outcome of the case might have been very different indeed.
Judge Rose decided that the woman should receive a reward of £500 for her actions.