A former investment firm director has been jailed for his part in a global fraud conspiracy for three and a half years.

William Godley, a former director of Imperial Consolidated Group , which managed more than £250 million of investors funds was sentenced at Blackfriars today (5 August).

Investors in the scheme had believed their money would be used to finance a commercial loans business.

Mrs Justice Gloster said, 'On any basis this is a very serious fraud in which substantial sums of money have been lost by investors, many of whom have suffered considerable hardship'

'Were it not for your guilty plea the starting point would have been seven years.'

Godley was charged alongside three other company executives in 2006 with conspiracy to defraud in scheme that caught up 3,000 investors.

During the course of the first trial in 2008 and a retrial in 2010 the three other defendants were acquitted.