Fraudster jailed for bogus movie charade

Former property developer Bashar Al-Issa was locked up for six-and-a-half years after he roped the unwitting Loose Women presenter, 43, into starring as bisexual therapist Dr Audrey Grey in low-budget film A Landscape Of Lies Ex-EastEnders star Marc Bannerman was also cast in the low-budget film, unaware that it was all part of a cunning plan to cover up a £2.7 million scam.

Iraqi-born Al-Issa, of Rodney Court in Maida Vale, west London, was described as the mastermind of the fraud by prosecutor Rebecca Chalkley after being convicted of two counts of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue.

She added: “He is the principal organiser and originator of the fraud and most certainly the prime beneficiary.”

Al-Issa, 35, was jailed alongside actress-turned-teacher Aoife Madden and three other men for lying about making a £20m gangster film called A Landscape Of Lives. Madden, who was sent down for four years eight months, claimed she was related to Irish actress Sinead Cusack and even said she would be able to get Ms Cusack’s thespian husband Jeremy Irons involved in the flick.

The fraud saw the gang attempt to fraudulently claim £2.7m in tax breaks.

They ultimately received £796,000 of public money by setting up a series of fake companies – none of which was ever recovered.

But when the authorities began breathing down their necks the panicked cheats cobbled together A Landscape of Lies in an unsuccessful bid to trick investigators.

They spent just £84,000 on the six-week shoot – less than they had fraudulently claimed for travel expenses for A Landscape of Lives.

At least ten versions of the script were drafted and pre-production work was done in a failed bid to con HMRC investigators, Southwark Crown Court was told.

Jailing them today for what she branded an “entirely bogus film project”, Judge Juliet May QC said: “This false project was the basis for three reclaims of repayment of VAT and one claim for Film Tax Credit, with another in preparation at the time of arrest.

“Documentation was uniformly false and misleading, designed to make it look like a £19.6m film project was underway when of course there was nothing of the sort.”

Judge May, who called the actors and film production staff the “innocents” of the scam added: “This was a sophisticated and detailed fraud project involving the preparation and deployment of considerable amounts of false documents.”

Turning to Al-Issa, she said: “Yours is the greatest culpability here.”

Judge May also attacked Al-Issa’s “arrogance and disdain” for jurors, and the way he “laughed up [his] sleeve at the gullability of the system”

Sentencing Madden, the judge branded the documents she prepared “pie in the sky,” adding: “You must have known that they were all a pack of lies”

Southwark Crown Court heard how the gang convinced HMRC that a production company called Evolved Pictures had secured £19.6million in financial backing from a Jordanian company.

Payments were then made between the dodgy companies in order to claim fraudulent tax breaks between April 2010 and April 2011.

Madden, 31, who was the director of Evolved, claimed to have an office in London’s Harley Street which was really just an empty room.

The flamed-haired Irishwoman, of Maclise Road in West Kensington, helped successfully scam HMRC into thinking the blockbuster was being produced despite showing them just eight minutes of non-broadcast quality footage filmed in her flat for £5,000.

Southwark Crown Court was also told how she falsely claimed to have paid Hollyoaks actress Christina Bailey £400,000 for starring in A Landscape of Lives – a fraction of the fee she was paid for appearing in A Landscape of Lies.

Describing Madden’s organisational role, Ms Chalkley said the documents she prepared were a “tissue of lies.”

She added: “The prosecution accepts that at the outset she wanted to make a film and may have believed this was a genuine project. There came a point, however, when that changed.”

Ms Chalkley continued: “She added: “This not a film production. It was a charade. The whole purpose was to steal money from the public purse.”

Madden, who met Al-Issa after she trained as a teacher at the University of East London, where he also studied admitting the same offences Al-Issa was convicted of before the trial began.

The university’s finance lecturer Tariq Hassan, 51, of Willingdale Road Loughton and Jordanian businessman Osama Al-Baghdady, 50, of Lowther Road in Crumpsall were both jailed for four after being convicted of one count of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue.

Architect Ian Sherwood, 53, of Esher Drive in Sale, Cheshire, was jailed for three and a half years after he was also convicted of one count of the same offence.

A confiscation hearing is set to take place at a later date.