Chris Smith and Peter Byrne secure 11 convictions at the Bradford Crown Court

Chris Smith and Peter Byrne were instructed by the Complex Crime Unit in Leeds to prosecute a series of trials known as ‘Operation Bellum’ between January 2015 and March 2016.

Chris led Peter in the main trial that involved a large number of fraudulent business loans being obtained from the NatWest bank where two of the Defendant’s were employed as Business Managers. Loans were applied for both using the stolen identities of innocent parties and also by other Defendants in their own names. The actual value of the money stolen from the bank was £289,000-00 but, had the fraud not been uncovered, the potential loss would have been at least £500,000-00.

Peter Byrne prosecuted a further three linked trials, securing convictions of all the Defendants in each of those trials.

All the Defendants were sentenced on the 4^th and 7^th of March 2016 and the total number of years imprisonment passed was 23 and a half years.

Chris and Peter are both instructed to deal with the significant Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings that are due to be heard in the Autumn.

For more information:

• Telegraph & Argus
• Yorkshire Post

Authors

Peter Byrne

Call 2012