A PROPERTY developer who built up a £1.5m “buy-to-let” portfolio by giving false details in mortgage applications could be jailed after he was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud.

Jason Omar was said to have told a series of lies in the applications between January 2007 and October 2008, including about his income and lack of previous criminal convictions.

A jury at Teesside Crown Court returned a guilty verdict on the 42-year-old.

However his co-accused, 53-year-old mortgage broker Paul Bradwell, who the Crown claimed knowingly signed off documents containing false information, was cleared of the same charge.

There were cries of “yes” from the public gallery as the jury foreman delivered a not guilty verdict on the defendant, while members of his family burst into tears and hugged each other.

Mr Bradwell, of Meadowgate Drive, Hartlepool, who said he had been “duped and used” by Omar, was invited by Judge Howard Crowson to leave the dock and told he was free to go.

Turning to Omar, the judge said he wanted a report on him from the probation service and urged him to co-operate in its preparation.

He said: “I have not decided what to do with you, I will decide that when I have heard everything that can be said on your behalf.”

Omar, of Church Lane, Ormesby, Middlesbrough, was bailed and told he would be sentenced in the week commencing April 22.

Another defendant in the case 45-year-old mother-of-two Angelique Huggett, of Dishforth Close, Thornaby, had previously admitted conspiracy to defraud and will be sentenced at the same time.

She was alleged to have fraudulently bought £1m worth of houses across Teesside.

Both Omar and Huggett were said to have received help to “flip” properties by remortgaging them before they owned them with the use of so-called bridging loans.

It was also alleged the pair got loans for significantly more than the houses were worth and pocketed the difference, about £250,000 in total.

Meanwhile, the salaries they both claimed to earn were vastly different to what they declared to the taxman.

Proceeds of crime legislation will now be used by the Crown to confiscate any assets belonging to Omar and Huggett and a timetable for this will be set out at the sentencing hearing.

*Solicitor Desmond McCarthy, 69, of Anchorage Mews, Thornaby, faced the same fraud charge but was previously found not guilty on the directions of Judge Crowson.

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