‘Ordinary, decent people driven to fraud’ to pay debt, says judge

A judge said “ordinary, decent people” can be “driven into fraud” after receiving threatening demands from their mortgage lenders.

Judge Eugene O’Kelly, Limerick District Court, yesterday heard a case of a trainee teacher forced to commit fraud in order to pay her mortgage, which had fallen into arrears. She had since lost her home.

Shirley Flanagan, 32, admitted five counts of deception and two counts of knowingly using a false insurance disc with the intention of inducing others to accept it as genuine.