A CONMAN jailed for his part in a major fraud plot in which jobseekers were duped into handing over their identities has had his prison sentence cut on appeal.
Recovering heroin addict Steven Curran, 37, was the "paid foot soldier" in the fraud conspiracy, which netted the perpetrators more than £100,000.
Curran, of Alfred Street, Ripley, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make an article for use in fraud and was jailed for three-and-a-half years at Derby Crown Court in December.
That sentence was yesterday reduced by top judges to three years.
Mr Justice Sweeney told the Court of Appeal in London that Curran was at the bottom of the hierarchy of those involved in the plot, which ran between January 2007 and January 2009.
Other criminals higher up the ladder set up a fake company and advertised jobs on the internet, using the details sent in by prospective employees to set up fake and cloned identities.
Those identities were then used to open bank accounts, apply for credit and, ultimately, to obtain mainly electrical goods which could be sold on to unwitting buyers for massive profits.
Internet auction site eBay was used to fence goods obtained via those identities, and some stolen in burglaries, with the cash paid into PayPal accounts and then taken from cash machines.
The plot began to unravel when a family member of a burglary victim found some of her stolen Royal Crown Derby china for sale on the internet and called police.
Curran's role was to go to the banks and, using documents given to him, open accounts in cloned and fake identities. He was paid £50 for each account opened.
Giving judgment, Mr Justice Sweeney said: "It seems to us that, as the recorder indicated, the appellant was indeed at the bottom of the scale of involvement as between himself and his co-defendants (Gary Gillam and Derrick Young)."
