A MORTGAGE consultant accused of stealing from two customers told a court that the allegations were untrue.

Christian Obasi, who worked obtaining compensation for people mis-sold endowment mortgages, said that he had not behaved dishonestly.

Obasi, 40, of Mandela Court, Wimberley Street, Blackburn, denies two offences of theft.

He initially operated from his home and later moved into premises in Burnley business centre. His girlfriend, whom he has since married, was the company secretary.

Liverpool Crown Court has heard that among his clients were two Bolton couples who only got their compensation after turning to the police for help.

The court has heard that the couples had seen an advert in the local press for Austin Hamilton Associates about endowment mortgage compensation and contacted the firm.

Obasi, who was the proprietor and sole employee agreed to take on their cases, said Michael Morley, prosecuting.

One couple were entitled to £3,000 less his commission of £590 but despite Obasi telling them in January 2006 that they would have the money within 21 days nothing happened.

In April they received a letter saying that Obasi had been in hospital for a long time.

The other couple were entitled to just over £21,000 compensation, less Obasi's commission of £4,200, and almost £20,000 surrender value of their policy.

Their building society handed over the money to Obasi in March 2006 and three weeks later the couple received the surrender money but the compensation did not arrive.

Both couples contacted the police and he was arrested in August 2006. The day after he was interviewed the first couple got their money from him and the other family got theirs just days before he first appeared in court in March last year, said Mr Morley.

Obasi told the jury that he set up the firm in November 2004 after quitting his £40,000 a year job writing letters for a firm handling compensation cases.

"When I was arrested I had 170 clients, some had been successful and some were on-going. I had probably concluded about half of them," he said.

He said that the ones which were on-going all successfully received compensation.

Further questioned he said that he went into hospital on February 9, 2006 and had open-heart surgery and was detained for 11 days. He was then advised to convalesce for four months during which time he was in pain following the operation.

He said that the two couples had not received the compensation in the period promised because he was not working through his ill health but he had later paid them.

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