A fraudster who falsified building forms for cash wrote fake emails to incriminate an innocent ex-colleague when under investigation.
Thomas Clarke was handed a suspended jail term earlier this week after admitting to fraudulently signing off dozens of EWS1 forms meant to show lenders that high rise buildings met appropriate standards for their cladding.
Clarke didn’t have the qualifications required to sign off the forms, which were brought in as part of reforms following the Grenfell Tower fire, and instead impersonated his ex colleague Sophie Magee to sign them off for a company in exchange for cash during 2020.
READ MORE: Dad pretended to be ex-female colleague to pay off gambling debts
Liverpool Crown Court heard earlier this week that Clarke earned at least £6,500 as part of the scheme but when suspicions were raised about the forms he began a cover up to try to escape justice.
Ms Magee first heard about the attempts to use her name when she received queries about the forms - and quickly informed the police, action fraud and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), of which she was a member.
As well as the criminal investigation, RICS began their own probe. Yet when an investigator approached Clarke for more information about the forms, he created a fake email account that he attributed to Ms Magee and sent emails to his own account from it.
The messages were concocted to look as if Ms Magee was complicit in the creation of fraudulent documents. Clarke made it appear as though Ms Magee had been persuaded to sign off the forms for money and told investigators she kept it secret because she didn’t want her current employers finding out. One email, formulated as though it had been sent by Ms Magee to Clarke after she had supposedly approved a form, read: “You owe me big time.”
Clarke’s scheme, and his plan to blame Ms Magee, soon fell apart and he pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation.
The judge, Recorder Andrew McLoughlin, said Clarke’s creation of fake emails had been used “to imply, quite cunningly, that she was implicated in all this”. Clarke was handed a 15 months jail term suspended for two years.
READ NEXT:
Woman killed boyfriend then said he'd been stabbed by 'some fella in town'
Pub 'appalled' to learn paedophile chef stashed vile child abuse images
Man found dead on train tracks at Merseyside station
Man in his 60s attacked outside Liverpool Sainsbury's store
19 things that ruined your day if you were a Merseyside teen in the Noughties
