A solicitor who stole almost £500,000 in mortgage fraud and used the money to go on a "hedonistic adventure" has walked free from court after his four year jail term was suspended for three years.
Belfast Crown Court heard that over a two year period Philip Krown, 53, also known as William Philip Crossey, opened a Swiss bank account and then used the money to rent an apartment in London SW7.
He also travelled "extensively" to his wife's home country of Columbia and to Europe, had an expense account at the Ritz Hotel and splashed out on "expensive jewellery".
All the money, the court heard, had come from Krown remortgaging his Groomsport Home for £445,000 and simply taking the cash, rather than using it to pay off the existing loan.
Arrested at Gatwick airport in March last year as he and his wife were about to board a flight to Barcelona, Krown later pleaded guilty to one count of theft and also to removing £390,498 of criminal property from Northern Ireland.
Before he changed his name to Krown, he had been known as Crossey and throughout the 1980's and 90's had built up a successful firm on the Cregagh Road in east Belfast and had served on the Council of the Law Society of Northern Ireland.
Outlining how he was diagnosed with diabetes and was forced to have his left leg amputated because of it, Judge Geoffrey Miller QC revealed that his right leg is also in danger and that his life expectancy could well be reduced.
He said Krown's "descent into the mire of his present circumstances has something of the Greek Tragedy about it".
The judge added however that he "cannot lose sight" of the fact that he had committed a deliberate fraud knowing full well that he could not repay the money.
He added he had planned a "sophisticated scheme" to get the money out of the country "by subterfuge...and thirdly that you then engaged on what may be regarded as a hedonistic adventure of high living for nearly two years" before he was eventually arrested.
The fraud was not discovered until March 2006 by which time, Krown and his wife had disappeared, not to be seen again for two years.
On Friday Judge Miller said while all the parties involved had been reimbursed, "I wish to make it clear that I do not regard this as a victimless crime".
"By your actions you have brought disgrace upon yourself and damaged your profession, the members of which will, through ever increasing premiums have to pay for what you stole," declared the judge.
He told Krown he believed the background to the case amounted to "special mitigating circumstances" and therefore "persuade me" that he should suspend the jail term.
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