Arrest pair attend daughter's lavish wedding bash

Jun 21 2009 by Lisa Hutchinson, Sunday Sun

THEY have been questioned in connection with what police say could be the biggest property scam the country has ever seen.

And, while thousands of their angry tenants face being made homeless, the Purdie family enjoyed a lavish wedding for their daughter Amee and new husband Michael Hall yesterday.

The plush wedding saw scores of guests cram into St Mary’s Church in Heworth, Gateshead, carried there by two stretch limousines and a red London bus, while the bride arrived in a vintage car.

After the ceremony they went on to the posh Hilton Hotel.

But the tenants of parents Grace and David Purdie - whose financial assets have been frozen - spoke out about their anger.

Last week detectives investigating the dealings of North East Property Buyers and Newcastle Home Loans, arrested three women and two men from addresses in Newcastle and Washington.

They included Mr and Mrs Purdie, of Darras Hall, Northumberland, who are each a director of one of the companies, and Grace Purdie’s business partner, Michael Foster, of Houghton-le-Spring.

The women, aged 24, 46 and 51, and men, 51 and 36, have been questioned on suspicion of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud, and released on bail.

It is alleged the two Gateshead-based property firms, which offer people in financial difficulties the chance to stay in their own homes by buying the properties and then renting them back to their former owners, defaulted on mortgages secured on the properties.

Tenants living in some of the 2000 homes in the companies’ portfolio have already been evicted.

David, 51, who played for Aston Villa in his younger days, and Grace, 46, who also ran her own interior design business, lived in a five-bedroom house in Rickleton, Washington, before selling it for £600,000 and moving to Darras Hall in Ponteland where they bought an impressive £1,660,000 mansion in 2007.

Grandfather Eric Duffield, 55, sold his house in Fenham, Newcastle, home to he and his wife Monica since 1985, to North East Property Buyers in 2006, after an accident at work forced him to give up his job. He now faces eviction.

He said: “I get more angry every day with what has happened to us and many others. As we sit and wait to see what will happen to our homes and cope with the misery, they are at a lavish wedding and big reception party at a posh hotel.

“People are very upset and news like this just makes it worse.”

Gloria and Desmond Thwaites, of Kenton, Newcastle, sold their home to North East Property Buyers and began to rent it back when they retired three years ago.

The couple sought legal advice when they were told the house on Trowbridge Way would be repossessed.

But after failing to secure Legal Aid, they have given up their fight and are now waiting anxiously to discover if the council will find them somewhere new to live.

Gloria, 65, said: “It makes me sick. My husband was 70 yesterday and we have had no end of worry. “

DCI Jim McAll, from Northumbria Police’s economic crime unit, said: “What is alleged is a very serious and complex fraud. If proven and if it is on the scale that is alleged it will probably be one of the biggest property frauds in the country. It is certainly the biggest one we have ever dealt with.”