Six solicitors charged with offences relating to a series of alleged commercial mortgage frauds worth a total of nearly £50m appeared in Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which brought the charges, alleges that the six solicitors and two non-solicitors ‘participated in a series of frauds whereby they dishonestly obtained loans from banks or building societies that were secured on six commercial investment properties’.

The six solicitors are: Laurence Ferrigan, 49, at the time a partner at East London firm the CFB Partnership; Mark Knights, 46, at the time employed at Manchester firm Mace & Jones; Kamran Malik, 32, at the time a partner at Birmingham firm A&H; Simon Lawrence, 49, at the time a partner at Edgware firm Darlingtons; Fatema Patwa, 48, at the time sole principal of Birmingham firm Patwa; and Hardeep Sodhi, 34, at the time a solicitor at Patwa.

Knights and Malik are each charged with three counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception. Patwa is charged with two counts of conspiracy to obtain money transfers by deception and three counts of dishonestly obtaining a money transfer.

Ferrigan and Sodhi are each charged with two counts of conspiracy to obtain money transfers by deception and two counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception. Lawrence is charged with two counts of conspiracy to obtain money transfers by deception. All six solicitor defendants deny all the charges.

Ian McGarry, 41, at the time a chartered surveyor with Dunlop Haywards Lorenz; and Saghir Afzal, 49, a company director and property owner, both entered guilty pleas to charges of conspiracy to obtain money transfers by deception and dishonestly obtaining a money transfer.

The case originated with a complaint made to West Midlands Police by the Cheshire Building Society in March 2006. The trial is expected to last for a number of weeks.

The SFO alleges that ‘each property was transferred between companies controlled by one of the defendants and his associates at highly inflated prices in a series of back-to-back transactions. On the basis of grossly inflated prices, fraudulent valuations and forged leases, the defendants applied for and obtained mortgage advances totalling nearly £50m. The mortgages were quickly defaulted on and the lender suffered significant losses.’