Property developers Geoffrey Strickland and Brian Capuvanno obtained mortgage for housing project by falsifying pay slips

Geoffrey Strickland and Brian Capuvanno gave false details to obtain joint funding to buy Hygienic House at 7 Huddersfield Road, Odsal, in March 2005, Bradford Crown Court heard.

They obtained planning consent to build seven town houses on the site, in a development known as Capa Terrace.

The men redeemed the Commercial First mortgage in full after 14 months when the Bank of Scotland approved a development overdraft for more than £620,000.

Strickland, 45, of Elm Grove, Wrose, Shipley, and Capuvanno, 41, of Wyke Lane, Wyke, originally faced eight charges of fraud between them.

They pleaded guilty on the day of their trial to one joint offence of obtaining a money transfer by deception between January 3 and March 3, 2005.

Their pleas were acceptable to the prosecution and the other seven allegations were not proceeded with.

The court heard yesterday that Capuvanno falsely stated he was employed by Sphinx Commercial as a quarryman earning £42,000 a year and had been there for five years.

Strickland declared that he was employed by SLR (Leeds) Ltd, earning £49,000 a year.

The men provided the mortgage company with forged wage slips to each obtain £60,000 from the fraud.

Judge John Potter sentenced both men to ten months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, with 250 hours’ unpaid work.

He told them: “This was a fraudulent transaction with a degree of sophistication about it from the outset.”

Although Strickland had 14 previous convictions for 35 offences, he had been in no trouble for dishonesty in the last 18 years, the court heard.

Capuvanno had offences of theft and handling stolen goods on his record but nothing in the last 13 years for dishonesty. Judge Potter said that, although fraudsters usually went straight to jail, there was enough mitigation in this case to suspend the men’s sentences.

The money they took out on the mortgage had been repaid in full with interest.