An estate agent has escaped jail for her part in a £5m mortgage fraud.

Emma Davey, 34, was given a 12-month sentence suspended for two years and 200 hours of unpaid work.

The three other members of the gang, Ben Picker, Mark Cainen and Paul John received, respectively, jail sentences of six years, eight years, and three years and four months.

Pickering and Cainen made bogus applications using false names and documents.

John, a Swansea-based financial adviser, used his position to put the applications forward and Davey, of Rhydargaeau, Carmarthenshire, assisted – although the court heard she played a “peripheral role”.

Judge Keith Thomas said at Swansea Crown Court: “These offences were fuelled not by economic necessity but by greed.”

Speaking after the sentencing, Catrin Evans, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Complex Casework Unit for Wales, said: “These four defendants were involved in an audacious, systematic and very large-scale financial fraud, committed over a prolonged period.

“The scale and complexity of their dishonesty was considerable.

“Two defendants used a variety of names and used their own companies to facilitate the fraud. Numerous documents were falsified in order to create a web of deceit.

“The group’s activities were undone by meticulous and professional work by expert financial investigators, working in tandem with specialist complex casework lawyers.

“Together, they painstakingly pieced together the prosecution case against Mark Cainen, Paul John, Emma Davey and Ben Pickering. All four have now rightly been held to account for their actions.”