A MAN accused of lying to mortgage lenders has claimed his broker fudged the application forms for his own financial gain.

Oxford Crown Court heard more details yesterday in the trial of Fredi Shima, of Mill Lane in Marston, who denies two counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception and a count of fraud.

The 44-year-old allegedly inflated his earnings and job description to secure three separate mortgages from lenders Birmingham Midshires, in 2006 and 2009.

In the first application, for a mortgage on a property in Moorbank in Blackbird Leys, it was stated that Shima earned £10,000 from an additional job and £12,000 through rent in addition to his £17,000 salary.

Defending, Stephen Shay yesterday pointed the finger at Farooq Ghulam, a witness in the trial who was Shima’s financial advisor at the time and filed the mortgage forms.

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Addressing the witness, Mr Shay said: “You knew £17,000 per annum would not be enough to get a loan of £140,000, so you added a couple of extra items in order to get the application through.

“I suggest Mr Shima never told you he had an additional job earning an extra £10,000, or that he was earning £12,000 through rental income.

“These extra figures didn’t come from [Shima], they were your creation to enable Mr Shima to get a mortgage.”

Mr Shay said it was in Mr Ghulam’s interest for the mortgage to be approved as he would not have received his commission otherwise.

Mr Ghulam, who has almost 20 years’ experience in the field, denied making up the numbers and told the jury: “I entered details on the computer based on information from the client.”

He said Shima might not have been with him when he filled in the form but he would have referred to notes from their conversation, and he would have asked for proof of employment.

Asked where these notes were, he said he would have shredded them years later.

Shima's application stated he was a hotel manager at Welcome Break, when in fact he was then working at Burger King – one of the chains that operates at most Welcome Break service stations.

Mr Shay put it to Mr Ghulam that he had chosen the ‘most convenient’ option from the drop-down menu online when filling in Shima’s employment details. He said: “He didn’t tell you he was a hotel manager, did he?”

Mr Ghulam replied: “He must have done, that’s what I put on the application form.”

Though Shima signed the form to declare the information on the form was true, his barrister suggested he was faxed the one page to sign, not the entire document.

A second application in 2016, for a property in Knights Road in Blackbird Leys, also stated Shima was a hotel manager employed by Welcome Break, even though he was then working The Mitre pub in Oxford.

It also said he earned tens of thousands of pounds above his basic salary from overtime, an additional job and rental income.

Mr Shay suggested Mr Ghulam had ‘just changed the figures slightly from the previous application’, which he denied.

Also giving evidence yesterday was John Ellson, a fraud investigator for Lloyds Banking Group, which owns Birmingham Midshires.

He admitted to the court that in 2006, before the global financial crash, it was easier to gain certain mortgages.

Mr Shay said: “Is it the reality that this application could have been approved by a computer?”

The witness replied: “It could have been, yes.”

The trial continues.