Shropshire conman David Oakley drops sentencing appeal

Convicted Shropshire conman David Oakley has dropped his appeal against a three-and-a-half year jail term imposed earlier this year for offences of fraud.

The appeal was lodged by the 64-year-old with the Court of Appeal in London in May and was due to have been heard next month.

However, a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that Oakley had recently decided to abandon all proceedings in the Court of Appeal.

Oakley intended to oppose the length of the sentence imposed at Wolverhampton Crown Court for dishonestly obtaining £360,000 in mortgages and loans between 2002 and 2004.

He was already serving a three-year-and-nine-month sentence for fraudulently running three travel firms in Shropshire almost 10 years ago.

The additional sentence imposed by Judge Nicholas Webb on April 29 was ordered to run from the date it was imposed, meaning Oakley would not be eligible for parole until early 2012.

Oakley, formerly of Salters Lane, Shrewsbury, was convicted in his absence at Shrewsbury Crown Court in 2008 for the holiday firm frauds and had started serving the original sentence in May last year after he was extradited from France.

During the hearing in April, Judge Webb described Oakley as a "practised fraudster". The mortgage frauds were committed between 2002 and 2004 when Oakley was on bail for the travel business frauds and before he fled to Spain.

Oakley, and his 51-year-old wife Amanda, were said to have conspired to make false claims about her employment to secure a substantial mortgage and loans.

Amanda Oakley, who admitted her part in one of the mortgage frauds, was given a six-month suspended prison sentence.