The former investment manager Tony Taylor is expected to spend another year or more in prison following his sentencing for fraud and other crimes yesterday.

Taylor (52) was sentenced to five years in jail when he pleaded guilty to five of 13 charges in the Circuit Criminal Court. The remaining charges were dropped.

However Judge Elizabeth Dunne said the time Taylor has spent in custody since his arrest in Eastbourne, in the UK, in August 1999 should be taken into account. With a one-third remission for good behaviour, Taylor may have a year to a year-and-a-half to serve.

Taylor was held in Britain until January 28th, 2000, when he dropped his challenge to his being extradited and was handed over to the garda. Yesterday he pleaded guilty to three charges of fraudulent conversion, one of carrying on a business for a fraudulent purpose, and one of destroying documents and records.

The latter charge was the first taken under the Investment Intermediaries Act 1995, on which Taylor gave advice to the government when it was being drafted.

The charges involved three victims: Ms Joan Anne O'Leary (£45,208); Mr Patrick Milner (£220,858); Mr George O'Hara (£136,000); and Ms Joan Lynch (£31,246).

The court heard that in some instances Taylor forged clients' signatures on the back of cheques made out to clients, and lodged them to group accounts.

Charges concerning the Society of St Vincent De Paul were dropped. It is understood this occurred as a result of discussions which began last week.

Up to then Taylor had been contesting the charges and it had been expected that a trial lasting up to 10 weeks and involving up to 60 witnesses would be needed.

The Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation, which conducted the inquiry into Taylor, gathered information from financial institutions in the UK, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Luxembourg. It was its largest and most complex case to date.

Taylor was formerly the principal of the Taylor group of investment companies on Clyde Road, Dublin. It had 1,200 clients with an excess of £30 million in investments. After Taylor and his wife, Shirley, disappeared in August 1996, it was discovered that Taylor had personal clients, some of whose funds were missing.

In total some £1.7 million belonging to 17 investors was lost. The court heard that Taylor used these clients' money in an effort to solve financial problems his companies were encountering.

The court heard the money was not spent by him personally.

However one party involved in the case said afterwards that the money was spent to prevent his businesses collapsing "along with his ego and the few hundred thousand pounds a year he was getting out of his business".

Before Taylor and his wife absconded they sold their cars, a Mercedes and a BMW. They left behind their detached house on Anglesea Road, Ballsbridge, which was subsequently sold for £580,000.

After £100,000 was taken by NIB, the remainder of the money was lodged to the courts.

This money is now likely to become involved in the liquidation of the Taylor group. The liquidator, Mr Paddy McSwiney, is likely to seek to have Taylor made personally responsible for the group's debts.

Taylor and his wife lived in Eastbourne after they fled. They lived there quietly, spending most of their time at home, with Taylor sometimes venturing out for a game of golf.

Yesterday he attended court alone. None of the victims there to hear him plead guilty.

His counsel, Mr Peter McDermott SC, said his instructions were to say Taylor deeply regretted what had happened and was sorry.

Mr McDermott said his client had suffered from a "blindness to reality" when he found the business on which he had worked so hard for so long was in difficulty. The funds taken had been used to try to rescue the companies and not spent by Taylor personally.

However Judge Elizabeth Dunne said she also had to think of the victims involved.

Taking Taylor's guilty plea into account she sentenced him to five years' imprisonment.

Garda sources said most of the victims of Taylor's fraudulent activity had not made complaints. It is thought this is because they did not want to bring the money to the attention of the authorities.