A Co Leitrim investment broker who fraudulently converted cheques totalling Ir£51,550 (€65,468) from a number of his clients has been jailed for three years by Judge Yvonne Murphy.

Brian Kilbane (37) was hired by various people to invest sums of money in financial institutions but he lodged the cheques in bank accounts in his own name.

Besides interest cheques being paid back to two clients, none of the money was recovered.

Kilbane also duped Mr Dermot McGuckian into paying him the sum of Ir£500 as a deposit on a house at Landale Lawns in Tallaght, Dublin.

The two men even went to see the house, which was never for sale.

The owner thought the men were surveyors because they were getting the house remortgaged so they could build an extension.

When officers from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation began to investigate Kilbane they found that he and his company, BRK Financial Services were not registered with the Central Bank to operate as an investment firm.

In January 1999 Kilbane fled to Cardiff but was extradited in custody last December to face these charges.

Kilbane, with an address at The Moorings, Clane, Co Kildare, but originally from Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to eight counts of fraudulent conversion on dates between January 1997 and August 1998.

He also admitted one count of obtaining under false pretences and one count of holding himself out to be an investment firm without authorisation between the same dates.

He has no previous convictions.

Judge Murphy suspended the last year of the sentence because of his early guilty plea, which spared what would have been a long and complex trial, but the seriousness of the offences had to be recognised by the court.

"The accused duped a number of small investors from, I have no doubt, hard-earned funds and while the amount was not the most significant to come before the courts it was for the victims," she said.

"He will find it difficult, if not impossible, to rise in that field again.

"But he has expressed remorse and his plea is of great importance in this case. However, these facts will be of little consolation to his victims who are still at a loss."

Det Garda Kevin Roche said that five people entrusted sums ranging from as little as Ir£850 to Ir£20,000 with him to invest in various Irish financial companies, such as the Irish Permanent and Irish Nationwide.

Another couple, Ms Ann Dillon and Mr Raymond Brady, hired him to invest Ir£27,000 between them in a bank called the Credit Swiss Boston Bank after Kilbane advised them it was a good time to invest offshore.

All of the cheques were lodged in either a First Active account or a Bank of Ireland account, both in Kilbane's name.

It was also later discovered that there was no record of a bank called the Credit Swiss Boston Bank ever existing.

Mr George Birmingham SC, for Kilbane, said his client was renting a small office at the back of a solicitor's firm in Ranelagh.

His company was in financial difficulty and he was in effect "borrowing off Peter to pay Paul".

Once the money went dry he fled to Cardiff and his marriage collapsed. His wife reported receiving threatening phone calls from her husband's angry clients and the whole family were in fear for their safety.

This was the main reason that Kilbane left the country.

He expressed genuine remorse but was now destitute and in no position to offer any sums of money to his victims.