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Hairdresser has jail sentence cut
A HAIRDRESSER who fraudulently obtained almost £1m to buy two plush Lytham homes has had her prison sentence slashed.
Debra Anne Clarkson, a 46-year-old mother-of-two, secured re-mortgages of 600,000 and 304,000 from the Halifax and Royal Bank of Scotland in 2003 for properties in West Beach and Clifton Drive, in Lytham.
Clarkson, who ran a salon in Accrington, falsely claimed to be earning 250,000 a year on the mortgage applications, but in truth was pulling in just 4,000.
She was jailed last month for 18 months after a jury at Preston Crown Court convicted her of two counts of obtaining services by deception.
Convictions
But Clarkson appealed against her convictions and sentence at the Court of Appeal in London.
Lord Justice Gage – who cut her sentence to six months, but upheld her convictions – said Clarkson was probably under her husband Mark's influence when she signed the applications.
Clarkson was only prosecuted as a spin-off to a Customs investigation of her bankrupt husband.
Lord Justice Gage – sitting with Mr Justice Teare and Judge John Rogers – said Clarkson had just given birth to a baby daughter weeks before she signed the documents that proved her undoing.
She claimed to be fundamentally naive, and to have signed the documents "without reading the contents because she trusted her husband who dealt with all the family's financial dealings", the court heard.
But Lord Justice Gage ruled the trial judge was right to allow the case to proceed against Clarkson, adding that she was the individual responsible for the bridging loans that helped secure the two properties.
"The fact is she signed documents involving very large sums," said the judge.
"In these documents there was information which was accepted to be false – quite clearly there was a case for her to answer," he told the court.
The judge dismissed her conviction appeal, but cut the 18-month sentence after accepting she was influenced by her husband.
Clarkson's fraud had left no victims, he said, while she was also a mother of two children with an impeccable past behind her.
Clarkson and her husband had a "luxury lifestyle", their 2m home was lavishly furnished and they had two Rolls-Royces – one with a personalised number plate – and a Mercedes also with a personalised number plate.
The Appeal Court was told Clarkson had a tragic background, having been orphaned in her teens when her family was killed in an air crash.
The judge concluded: "She must have been under the influence of her husband who has not been prosecuted in respect of this matter, for reasons which are not clear."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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