FAKE letters to support his own planning applications

Thursday 04 January 2018

Solicitor and deputy district judge Keith Shaw, 37, of Whitby, Yorkshire, admitted a series of frauds between 2012 and 2015 at Westminster Magistrates' Court. Shaw, a family court judge on the northeast circuit, had written the letters to support plans to develop several plots of land around Whitby and used real names and addresses without permission. He was caught when Scarborough Borough Council reported his actions to the police in 2015. Shaw also falsely claimed a refund of £2,747 in relation to surveyors' fees when buying an area of land in Sleights.

He had claimed that due to a delay in the sale completing he had been charged for a survey that did not go ahead, which was not the case.