A 67-Year-old former quantity surveyor broke down in tears yesterday when a judge refused to extradite him to Britain on property fraud charges totalling over £20 million.
Mr William Hurrell, of Village Court, Rathfarnham, Dublin, had been held in Mountjoy Prison for over two weeks on three warrants issued by the South Wales Fraud Squad. The prosecution related to frauds against building societies and banks by using inflated valuations of property in Wales and London to obtain mortgages.
Mr Hurrell was accused of conspiring to defraud with a Welshman, Mr Kenvyn Rees Jones, by falsely pretending property in Belgrave Square, London, was worth between £8.5 million and £18 million.
It was also alleged that he attempted to defraud Eagle Star Insurance by pretending a £400,000 farmhouse at Weanvoe, near Cardiff, was worth £560,000.
The same property was allegedly used in a conspiracy to defraud Bristol and Western Building Society by pretending it was worth £435,000 and also from £580,000 to £1 million. All the offences were alleged to have occurred between October 1989 and January the following year.
Dublin District Court heard that 26 other people had been brought to trial in Britain for the same property frauds but only three had been convicted. Mr Patrick Gageby SC, for the defence, argued that charges of conspiracy to defraud in respect of the Welsh property had been changed from offences of obtaining property by deception to correspond with Irish law, and represented an "abuse of process".
He also argued that there was another charge in the original indictment relating to the Belgrave property and there was a danger the defendant could face trial for this if extradited.
Judge Murrough Connellan struck out the warrants for the Belgrave charge on the basis there was an another offence outstanding and struck out the Welsh warrants on the basis they were incomplete as extra counts on the indictment had not been included. The judge told the defendant he was free to leave the court.