A company director has been found guilty of providing false building work completion certificates.

Wayne Murfet was found guilty at Colchester Magistrates Court on Wednesday along with the companies Lord Homes Ltd and Murfet’s ( Burroughs Green) Ltd.

Murfet had denied making or supplying articles for use in fraud on or before October 11, 2018, in relation to 36 false certificates of completion of building works, intending they would be used in the conveyancing of 36 flats at, The Grosvenor, 146-148 High Street, Newmarket.

A jury found him guilty of the counts and also on a charge in relation to a house at the Paddocks, Brinkley Road, Burroughs Green, Newmarket

Murfet and Lors Homes Ltd were also found guilty of 12 charges of fraud by failing to disclose to the purchasers of six flats at 146-148 High Street that building works had not been certified as complete by the building control department of West Suffolk Council.

Murfet and Murfet (Burrough Green) Ltd was also found guilty of failing to disclose to the purchaser of a plot at Brinkley Road, Burroughs Green, Newmarket that building works at the property had not been certified as complete by the building control department of East Cambridgeshire District Council.

Suffolk Trading Standards took the prosecution and the offences were all committed between October 2018 and August 2019.

The defence case was previously described as “desperate” by the prosecution.

Murfet said the building control completion certificates were not created by him but issued by a building control officer for West Suffolk Council.

The defendant said the 36 certificates appeared on his company computer and he assumes they were scanned in by one of his secretaries after they were hand delivered to his office by an unknown person.

After he found them there, he proceeded thinking they were legitimate.

When cross examined, he could not explain what the building control officer would stand to gain by doing this but still denied forging the documents.

The trial also heard from Judy Bird, who bought a four bedroom house on Brinkley Road with her partner.

She said: “If we had known the house was not signed off by building control we would have had concerns and would not have proceeded to purchase at that point.

"It has made me question, what else don’t we know about the house?"

Murfet will be sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court on October 1.