A PROPERTY tycoon, a cricketer, an in-debt surveyor, a corruptible underwriter and an unqualified accountant - the five people at the heart of the country's biggest ever mortgage fraud.

For four years, North East Property Buyers and Newcastle Home Loans Ltd tricked mortgage-lenders into sanctioning inflated loans, and home-owners into signing bogus tenancy agreements.

Led by ringleader David Purdie, they all made hundreds of thousands of pounds from a scheme which has left hundreds of people in the region either homeless, bankrupt, blacklisted or suicidal.

The plot wasn't complex - it wasn't even clever - but as one of the conspirators was to admit after his arrest during a lengthy police investigation: "It was unsustainable . . . tragic."

Tragic it has been for the many innocent people caught up in the £300m scheme which concentrated on buy-to-let deals - either on new-build properties or those owned by people in financial trouble.

Those known as "distressed" sellers were typically people who had bought their homes with a mortgage and were unable to meet the repayments, and faced having them repossessed.

North East Property Buyers would tell owners they would he allowed to stay in their homes as tenants - but the agreements turned out to have no proper legal foundation.

There has been extensive civil litigation in the Supreme Court about the rights and obligations of the mortgage companies and the tenants - and it found in favour of the lenders.

In 2009, around 2,000 tenants were told they could be made homeless at only 60 days' notice - a decision upheld in the Court of Appeal in 2012, and now in the Supreme Court.

It emerged that North East Property Buyers did not acquire a single property in its own name. Every one of the homes it bought was done so in the name of a "nominee".

Nominees were typically members of staff, members of David Purdie's family or that of his wife, Grace, director Michael Foster and his relatives, prosecutor Jane Bewsey, QC, said.

Nearly always when a house was put in someone's name, they received £500, and some people had so many their documents took up two drawers in filing cabinets recovered during the inquiry. There was a chart on the wall to keep track of the mortgages.

Legally, a nominee became the owner of the property and was fully responsible for the mortgage repayments - although many of them believed the company owned them.

But as the scheme began to fail and the monthly rents were not enough to cover the mortgage payments being paid by North East Property Buyers, the truth became horrifically clear.

Among those left in a dreadful finical situation are many members of Foster's family, and several professional rugby players Purdie knew from his links to Newcastle Falcons.

Ms Bewsey said: "Many believed they were becoming involved in an investment opportunity. They have been left with personal debts running, in many cases, to millions of pounds.

"Some have been made bankrupt. Some face or have faced losing their homes. Many will find it difficult or impossible to get credit in the future.

"That is before any trout is given to the emotional cost to the losers - graphically described in witness statements obtained as part of the case.

"There are statements from those who have experienced the breakdown of their marriage as a consequence of the personal fall-out from this scheme, others who describe the debilitating impact on their working lives and future employment prospects, or their future creditworthiness, and some who fear they will never be able to own their own home in the future."

It was a similar story with new-build properties, and as before, many of the mortgage applications were for more than the homes were worth, and contained misleading information.

Judge Howard Crowson said: "This fraud, spanning many years, resulted in substantial losses to lending institutions, it undermined the confidence that should exist between lenders and financial advisors, and for a time it provided you all with a good living.

"Fraud is often portrayed as a complex crime, but in this case the fraud was not particularly complex - it simply depended upon lending institutions trusting that they were being told the truth in mortgage applications, and upon that basis, advancing a greater sum than would have been risked if the truth had been told."