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Jailed property boss must pay £150k to fraud victims

Ben ParkerSuffolk
Google A five-storey block of flats - a brown and white brick building.Google
The Grosvenor complex is just off the High Street in the horseracing town

A property developer who had already been jailed for falsifying building work documents to sell flats has now been ordered to pay over £150,000.

Wayne Murfet, director of Lors Homes, supplied 36 fake building control completion certificates for flats at The Grosvenor complex in Newmarket, Suffolk.

The 42-year-old, from Chippenham in Cambridgeshire, was jailed in 2024 for three and a half years and disqualified from being a director of a company for seven years.

At a hearing at Ipswich Crown Court on Friday, Murfet was told to pay £83,688 in compensation to home owners, £67,128 in costs and a £170 victim surcharge.

The flats, on High Street, were inspected by West Suffolk Council's building control officers and were found to be in breach of building regulations, while concerns relating to fire safety were also raised.

Murfet, of Freckenham Road, was charged with multiple counts of fraud by dishonesty and intending to make a gain by failing to disclose information he was under a legal duty to disclose - and making or supplying an article for fraud.

Following an investigation, he was also found to have supplied a fake certificate for a property in Cambridgeshire through his other company, Murfet (Burrough Green) Limited.

Murfet denied the offences but was convicted in 2024 after Suffolk Trading Standards brought the case before magistrates in Colchester.

The court heard buyers purchased their properties believing them to have been signed off and safe.

However, West Suffolk Council's officers had to install a 24-hour waking watch at the property due to concerns.

George King/BBC The frontage of Ipswich Crown Court, in Ipswich. The front of the building is predominantly glass with a white concrete border, on which the Ipswich Crown Court crest is displayed.George King/BBC
In 2024, Wayne Murfet was sentenced to three and a half years in prison at Ipswich Crown Court

Graham Crisp, Suffolk County Council's head of trading standards, said: "Although no compensation can undo the distress caused by Wayne Murfet's actions, I am pleased his victims will be given a share of the £83,000 he has been ordered to pay.

"Murfet's behaviour caused substantial loss to the purchasers and created a significant risk to people's safety and property."

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