Two people convicted of frauds worth hundreds of thousands of pounds are facing prison sentences today.
Muhammed Ali, 56, from Acklam, Middlesbrough and Carol Ann Bainbridge, 47, were convicted by a jury of conspiring to defraud the former regional development agency One North East.
Jurors unanimously found them guilty after more than eight hours’ consideration at Teesside Crown Court today.
A third defendant, 47-year-old John Joseph Wheatman, was cleared of the charge and released from court.
All three denied the conspiracy and have been on trial since last November.
Ali and Bainbridge are expected to be sentenced for the £500,000 fraud - along with a separate £1.6m mortgage fraud with other defendants - on March 13.
Judge Les Spittle allowed them bail to organise their affairs but warned them: “You must have no illusions as to what the likely sentence is here.”
Ali and Bainbridge were accused of fleecing the taxpayer out of more than half a million pounds.
They were charged with defrauding the now-defunct One North East between June 2008 and October 2009.
Prosecutor Andrew Haslam said they took money from the agency and kept it for their own ends in a bank account in Ali’s name.
He said just over £519,000 of taxpayers’ money was paid out by One North East on the basis of false information, and was spent.
He said Ali, of Acklam Road, used other people’s identities and appointed “stooges” as company directors, giving him control while hiding his involvement and diverting creditors.
False documents in the name of a purported audit firm were submitted to deceive One North East and obtain grant funding, it was alleged.
The case concerned a company, Well Springs Green Lane Ltd, and its failed development in Spennymoor, County Durham.
The account in Ali’s name received almost £823,000 in the nine months before the company went into administration in October 2009, £2.6m in debt, jurors heard.
Mr Haslam said Ali and Bainbridge were on state benefits while claiming to have access to “unlimited funds”.
Wheatman’s barrister Amar Mehta said Ali and Bainbridge were a team, “partners in crime” or “vultures” who preyed on Wheatman, from Sunderland, and his project.
He told jurors: “Mr Wheatman is a victim of their fraud. He’s been used by Mr Ali and Ms Bainbridge to get their hands on the money.”
He said Ali took control, got the funding and did what he wanted with it, redirecting company funds.
He alleged Ali gained £750,000, his “sidekick” Bainbridge £250,000, from the fraud while they were on state benefits.
Nigel Ingram, representing Ali, said there was no falsehood, dishonesty or fraud.
Katy Rafter, for Bainbridge, of Brafferton, Darlington, said she handled the practical side as a construction project manager and was not “guilty by association”.
Ali and Bainbridge also face sentence for a conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders between June 2007 and August 2009.
Ali and his son Mohammed Salman Ali, 28, also of Acklam Road, admitted taking part in the plot.
Bainbridge and Ali Snr’s wife Ghazala Ali, 45, denied the conspiracy and were convicted after a trial in December 2013.
In that case, Mr Haslam said the fraud used false identities or the identities of unsuspecting third parties, false documents and false income declarations.
