The Yorkshire Post reported that Mohammed Mahmood Yaquoob applied for a £500,000 remortgage to renovate and extend the home of his brother, Mohammed Azam Yaqoob, in March 2007. He told the Abbey building society that the house was worth £1 million.

Mr Mahmood claimed to earn £123,500 a year, when in fact, he earned just over £40,000 a year as a senior operations manager at HMP Armley.

However, these funds were never released as police launched an investigation soon after and found that Mr Mahmood had already made two successful fraudulent mortgage applications on the house.

In December 2002, Mr Mahmood successfully applied for a £265,500 self cert mortgage from the Bank of Scotland on the mansion, which was then priced at £295,000. He told the bank that his annual salary was £85,000, when it was actually around £25,000.

Then in May 2004, Mr Mahmood took out a second mortgage on the property in order to pay off the original one, and carry out renovations. He was granted £400,000 by the Birmingham Midshires Building Society after stating his annual income to be £134,000.

Mr Mahmood’s brother, Mr Azam, is facing separate charges of defrauding HSBC of more than £70,000 by using forged invoices from an engineering company in an unrelated scam. He has also been accused of laundering £115,000 through his bank account from this fraud.

Prosecutors believe that Mr Azam received the cash benefits from the numerous mortgage applications.

Mr Azam has denied three charges of theft, two counts of money laundering and one fraud, whilst his brother Mr Mahmood has denied three counts of mortgage fraud and acquiring criminal property.

The trial continues.