A convicted mortgage fraudster, who was allowed to assume the role of director of a luxury property company, is reported to have taken £247,000 from the firm just before it went into administration.

Former director of Park Circus Homes, Maureen McLaughlin, was found to have taken £75,000 and £172,000 by government investigators, according to Scottish newspaper, The Daily Record.

McLaughlin was allowed to run the Glasgow-based property business despite being banned by the government from holding any company directorships following ‘disastrous previous developments’, the paper reported.

The former director was convicted of five counts of mortgage fraud in 1988, but avoided a prison sentence. She was also reported to be involved in a failed development in 2001, on a converted quarry in Kilsyth, Stirlingshire, in which dozens of people lost deposits worth tens of thousands of pounds.

However McLaughlin was allowed to run Park Circus Homes after persuading a sheriff that her directorship ban should include an exempt for heading up the property company.

The firm went into liquidation in March 2008 and was placed into administration two weeks later.

The Insolvency Service has now banned McLaughlin, who currently lives near Glasgow in her £700,000 home, from being a company director until 2018.

Speaking about the £250,000 McLaughlin paid herself, The Insolvency Service told the paper: “Those sums were said to be due to her as salary or bonus, however no evidence has been provided to show those sums were due.”

Adding that McLaughlin knew the company was at risk at the time the payments were made, The Insolvency Service continued: “The payment of those monies to her were transactions that were to her benefit and the detriment of the general body of creditors.”

One associate of Park Circus Homes told the paper: “It's incredible that someone with such an abysmal track record was given special treatment by a sheriff. It should come as no real surprise that just a year later she abused the privilege she was given by taking £247,000.”