Solicitor Jailed For £1.3M Mortgage Fraud

A disgraced criminal defence solicitor was jailed for two years today for a £1.3m mortgage fraud involving six East London properties.

Mother-of-two Elena Quinlivan, 35, (pictured) of Louise Road, Stratford planned to build a property empire of rentals, using forged identity documents, bank statements and payslips.

"You obtained mortgages to the tune of over one point three million and the mortgages were for houses you intended to let out for profit," Southwark Crown Court Judge Nicholas Lorraine-Smith told tearful Quinlivan.

"The housing market was promising and your head was turned by the fraudulent success of an associate, with his expensive home and car.

"You are an intelligent solicitor, who also once worked for an estate agents, and cannot be called naive."

Manchester University graduate Quinlivan worked for Ilford-based ST Law after qualifying on May 15 2008 and was also employed for three years by leading human rights solicitor Imran Khan, who represented her in court.

She pleaded guilty to seven counts of conspiring with others to obtain money transfers in sums of £166,000; £198,249; £171,000; £142,000; £228,000; £204,000 and £223,250 on various dates between January 1 2003 and March 27 2005.

The charges relate to 47 Louise Road; 54 Glenavon Road; 26 Simmons Walk and 108 Geere Road, Stratford; 180 Sherrard Road, Forest Gate and 114 Western Road, Plaistow.

Quinlivan's total benefit was  calculated at £905,031 and she must repay £108, 405 within twelve months or serve an additional two years' imprisonment.

Prosecutor Mr. Stuart Biggs told the court Quinlivan's financial advisor offered a "one-stop fraudulent shop," providing the defendant with forged passports, driving licences and utility bills, along with bogus references and national insurance numbers in various identities.

She began building a property portfolio while only a part-time £100 a week administrator at an estate agents, helping support her husband while he completed a phd at Queen Mary University.

Quinlivan used her maiden name and the names of family and friends to obtain the mortgages, once successfully passing herself off as a £48,000 a year executive and her husband as a £78,000 a year IT consultant.

"There was a culture at the time that mortgages were given out left right and centre," said Quinlivan's lawyer Mr. Khan. "She saw her financial advisor making a large amount of money.

"She was bedazzled by him and taken in by his talk and ability to make money very quickly. She fell for it and admits it was stupidity in the extreme."

After the final bogus application in 2005 Quinlivan threw herself into her legal career and the family recently moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where her husband Dr. Mark Quinlivan is an associate faculty member at the U.S's National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

"She has worked in these courts in a very different position," added Mr. Khan. "Not all lawyers are intelligent. This is not some scheme hatched by a master criminal, but one person, rather clueless."

Judge Lorraine-Smith said: "These were multiple frauds over a long period of time and were professionally planned. These offences deserve a long prison sentence."