A SOLICITOR who has admitted 34 fraud charges involving more than #4m
will be sentenced today.
John Joseph McCabe, a former partner in the Edinburgh firm of Scott
Moncrieff and Dove Lockhart, pleaded guilty yesterday to a 15-page
indictment containing 34 charges of fraud and one of attempted fraud.
The charges cover a period between March 1983 and November last year.
McCabe, 42, who specialised in domestic and commercial conveyancing,
admitted obtaining cash from 14 different building societies, four
banks, and a property investment company by providing false information
on loan applications over a number of properties in Edinburgh, including
his own home.
He also forged signatures, including that of his wife, Mrs Helen
McCabe. The sums involved ranged from #19,250 to #534,870.
Two weeks ago, Mrs McCabe was found guilty of professional misconduct
by the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal. She was censured and,
for a period of five years, can work only as a qualified assistant to an
employer approved by the Law Society of Scotland.
The tribunal found that Mrs McCabe had acted for the Halifax and
Newcastle Building Societies over loans granted to her husband, but
failed to safeguard their interests by neglecting to ensure that
standard securities were registered in good time.
The tribunal said that Mrs McCabe had been naive and foolish in
failing to follow established legal procedures.
McCabe left Scotland suddenly for Uruguay at the end of last year but
was arrested at Heathrow airport on his return on December 20, 1990.
After McCabe tendered a guilty plea to 35 charges yesterday Lord Ross,
the Lord Justice Clerk, agreed to continue the case until today at the
High Court in Edinburgh after being told that to outline the details and
present a plea in mitigation would take a considerable time.
The Judge agreed to continue bail for McCabe.
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