BOXING promoter Barry Hughes has been fined £45,000 after appeal court judges quashed his 43-month jail sentence for mortgage fraud and money laundering.
The 35-year-old was jailed for three and a half years in March after pleading guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to illegally obtaining £1.2 million for two mortgages.
He was also convicted of laundering £150,000 and using some of the cash to buy a designer Rolex watch.
But yesterday, at the Court Of Criminal Appeal, Edinburgh, judges Lord Carloway, Lord Brodie and Lord Philip set aside the jail sentence.
They did so after hearing defence QC Gordon Jackson say nobody lost any money due to his client's actions. The lawyer told the court the jail sentence was not proportionate to the exact nature of the offence. The judges agreed and ruled the father of five should pay a fine instead.
As he left court, Hughes hugged his wife Jacqueline and said: "I want to concentrate on looking forward and getting on with my life."
Hughes, of Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire, had been allowed to leave jail temporarily after judges granted him interim liberation following a hearing earlier this year.
At the Glasgow Sheriff Court proceedings, Hughes admitted lying on mortgage applications about his wife's income in 2004 for one property in Bridge Of Weir and in November 2006 for a second house in Kilmacolm.
He claimed his 37-year-old wife made £160,000 from her business McDonald Interiors. The mortgages were then approved. But the court heard that papers lodged by her in 2006 stated she was "financially dependent" on her husband. This meant Mr Hughes had obtained the money fraudulently.
Prosecutors are still taking Hughes to court in an attempt to win cash from him using Proceeds Of Crime laws.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article