A HUSBAND and wife from Co Tyrone who hid £2 million (€2.24 million) in offshore accounts while they ran a building supplies firm have been jailed for tax fraud and ordered to repay a record sum of nearly £4 million.

Patrick Gerard Small (56) and Mary Elizabeth Small (50), both of Cullenrammer Road, Dungannon, traded as Greystone Builders’ Merchants in the Co Tyrone town.

The couple were handed sentences totalling six years between them yesterday at Belfast Crown Court, and told to pay the largest confiscation sum in a tax cheat case to date in Northern Ireland.

The UK’s customs and tax department said the Smalls, who lived in a luxury 12,000 sq ft mansion, had “siphoned off” nearly £4 million through false accounting to avoid paying taxes over 17 years in business. HM Revenue Customs said the husband and wife had submitted “falsified trading accounts as well as personal tax and VAT returns” in a deliberate bid to avoid paying tax.

Revenue officials revealed some of the couple’s stolen taxes were hidden in off-shore bank accounts in the Isle of Man, while other cash had been laundered through property development.

Officials discovered the Smalls had built 23 houses in Northern Ireland and bought “high value antiques and jewellery”. During a search of the Smalls’ main home, Revenue officials uncovered more than £492,000 in safes which had not been declared as income.

Revenue spokeswoman Clare Merrills said the Smalls had stolen taxpayers’ money “over many years and had claimed tax credits despite having millions stashed offshore. Income tax and VAT fraud are not victimless fiddles.”

Mr and Mrs Small pleaded guilty yesterday at Belfast Crown Court to a total of five charges of cheating in respect of tax, VAT evasion and tax credit fraud. Mrs Small pleaded guilty to nine counts of false accounting. Mr Small was jailed for three and a half years, and Mrs Small for two and a half years.