A surgeon who was based at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, who is behind bars for a massive insurance scam and mortgage fraud, has been given a three-month deadline to come up with more than half-a-million-pounds or have an extra five years added to his sentence.
Two years ago, Anthony McGrath was jailed for eight years for the massive scam which involved him faking a burglary at his home and claiming to police £180,000 worth of antiques had been stolen.
He also committed a series of fraudulent mortgage applications which netted him around £1million.
Overnight the Maserati driving doctor who admitted at his trial that he had cheated on his GP wife during their marriage, went from a successful surgeon to jailbird.
Now, two years into his sentence, Irishman McGrath has been told he must pay back £564,518.
That’s the figure a judge has decided is available from his total “criminal benefit” of £974,144 that McGrath made from his dishonesty in the form of fraudulent mortgage loans advanced to him by Lloyds Bank between 2012 and 2015
Judge Steven Evans made the order on Friday, March 26 at Luton Crown Court, having presided over a three-day Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation hearing at the beginning of March.
McGrath, 48, who crimes were featured in the Channel 4 series 24 Hours in Police Custody, will have to pay the money to the HMCTS South East Regional Confiscation Unit by June 26.
If he defaults, he was told he will receive a further five years on top of the sentence he is now serving.
His wife Anne-Louise McGrath, 46, who had been on trial with her husband, was acquitted of the mortgage frauds after telling jury that as a busy mother raising their young children, she left family financial matters to him.
The judge said when McGrath had given evidence at the confiscation hearing he had been “uncooperative and unforthcoming with information.”
He went on: “In short I found him to be a thoroughly dishonest witness, quite prepared to manipulate and forge evidence and tell lies in court.”
McGrath, said the judge, had not been prepared to help the court with regard to the value of antiques and artwork during his evidence.
After the judge made his ruling on Friday Mrs McGrath refused to make any comment about the case, except to say: “It’s not my issue and it’s nothing to do with me. I’m not involved in this and have no interest in it.”
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