How mortgage sharks’ earnings are getting used to stop unlawful lending

In Ormiston Bolingbroke Academy in Runcorn, Cheshire, a class of year seven students are using AI software in school.

That is not normal practice, but they aren’t in a normal lesson. 

The students are using the software to generate images of what a loan shark could look like, as part of a ‘lessons for life’ curriculum, the aim of which is to prepare them for when they leave school.

Part of this includes understanding how to manage their finances, and highlighting the risks of illegal lending – something which their teacher says is an issue in the area. 

Lessons for life: Teacher Liam Hussey hopes to help his students navigate their finances safely in the future

What they will hopefully learn from today’s AI task is that there are no hard rules to how an illegal money lender physically appears.

‘A loan shark could be someone older, it could be someone younger, it could be someone from your local community, or it could be someone who maybe appears as a professional,’ Liam Hussey, head of PSHE at the school, said.

‘They’re getting a life lesson that maybe isn’t wholly impactful for them right now. But in later life, they will start managing their own money and they might need to borrow money in certain circumstances.

‘Our local safeguarding data tells us that we serve a deprived area, and we know that illegal money lending does go on in our area. I would bet money that some of our [students’] families have engaged with and are currently engaging with loan sharks.’

Classes like these seek to raise awareness of illegal lenders and the risks associated with borrowing, helping to prevent students becoming in debt in later life, as well as giving children practical knowledge on how to manage their finances.

The students’ AI-generated images have now been collated into a poster displayed in the school, raising awareness to other student and parents, with a QR code that takes them to the Stop Loan Sharks website.

The resources for the session were funded by England’s Illegal Money Lending Team, a public body which aims to prevent loan sharking using money confiscated from illegal lenders. An external company, Digital Arts Box, runs the class.

Poster: The children used AI to generate images of a loan shark, revealing that they may appear in many different ways – and then created this poster for their school

‘They’re actually paid for using proceeds of crime taken from convicted loan sharks, which I like, because it’s loan sharks paying to educate future generations to not use loan sharks,’ Cath Wohlers, the IMLT’s operations manager, told This is Money.

For Hussey, and other teachers looking to engage students in similar life skills curriculums, the resources funded by the IMLT offer an opportunity to get expert input.

Hussey said: ‘For the geography teacher to stand up and talk about loan sharks, or a history teacher to talk about drug misuse, it can be an abstract concept in a many cases. Bringing in that external expertise helps give consistent, clear messages.’

‘The fact that this was hands on and creative, I think made the students more engaged… and they will remember more from it as a result.’

The IMLT offers a wide-ranging array of resources to schools, both in the form of free downloadable materials, and funded programmes such as the one at Ormiston.

For primary school-age children, the IMLT highlights topics on a basic level, covering ‘the difference between needing something and wanting something. What is money? Where does money come from?’ Wohlers said.

‘It’s astonishing when you go into primary schools, and you ask seven- and eight-year-olds where money comes from, and they say things like, ‘Oh, you just go and get it from that hole in the wall’.’

Despite this, Wohlers believes that in most cases children are observant, even if they don’t understand exactly what is going on.

‘We’ve had kids who have told us about hiding behind the sofa on a Thursday night because the money man is calling,’ she said.

‘Years ago, we had a letter written to us by a child who had obviously watched a police drama because she gave us the registration plate of the loan shark and said “my mum cries when he calls round”.’

In some ways, however, this can present a danger.

‘One risk is having an impact on their mental health and their wellbeing right now,’ Wohlers said, ‘And the other is that it’s normalizing it for them in the future, so that they think that is how you borrow money.’

For older age groups, meanwhile, the resources go for a harder-hitting approach, aimed at highlighting the dangers of illegal lending.

‘We have a victim video of a man who was 17 when he first borrowed from a loan shark and ended up paying back £90,000 on a £250 loan over a period of 17 years,’ Wohlers said.

An extreme example, Wohlers concedes, but the age of the victim hits home with students at a similar stage of their lives.

‘Years ago there was a loan shark in Sheffield lending to a 14-year-old, with their PlayStation as security against the loan,’ she said.

Let alone lending to school children, Wohlers said the IMLT has previously dealt with a loan shark who sent his children to the school playground to find out which kids didn’t have new football boots or hadn’t been on holiday that year, in order to target their parents with loan offers.

‘I don’t think you’re ever too young to understand,’ Wohlers said, ‘If you’re a kid, it is scarier if you don’t know what your parents are dealing with, but are just aware of this sense of fear and this this shadowy figure.

‘If you can put a name to it, that almost helps’.