ireland, irish, ulster, ireland, irish, ulster, Sinn Féin, Irish America

(Suzanne Breen, Irish Mail on Sunday)

When beautiful Irish actress Aoife Madden arrived in London 10 years ago, she seemed destined for fame and fortune. With ravishing red hair, charm, intelligence and an abundance of talent, she possessed all the qualities for stardom.

She wowed the acting world, landing plum roles in the West End and on television. Ultra-ambitious, she set up her own production company and started making films herself. Famous men smitten by the young Newry actress included DJ Chris Evans.

But now Aoife Maria Madden's dreams lie in tatters. Instead of enjoying the glitz and glamour of the big screen, she is facing an entirely different role – a lengthy spell in an English jail.

Next week, Madden (31) will be sentenced for her part in masterminding a plot to defraud British tax-payers of millions of pounds. Conspiring with four male accomplices, she falsely claimed to be making a £20 million Hollywood blockbuster appropriately named, A Landscape of Lies.

It was a scam to pocket £2.8 million in VAT and film tax credits. She was convicted at Southwark Crown Court last week on two counts of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue.

In her home town of Newry, Madden's friends are saddened but not surprised by her meteoric fall. "Aoife liked living on the edge," said a former classmate from the Sacred Heart grammar school.

"And she wasn't frightened to take risks. She wanted to be famous and make lots of money. She loved the high life and had expensive tastes. She didn't think things were moving fast enough for her in the film industry. She used to say 'Life has no remote. You have to get up and change it yourself.'"

And in a further twist to a plot that is as intriguing as any movie script, we can reveal that Madden comes from a famous Border republican family. Her uncle is Sinn Féin Newry and Armagh MP and ex-Provisional IRA prisoner Conor Murphy, once tipped as the man most likely to succeed Gerry Adams as party leader.

When contacted through his constituency office by the Irish Mail on Sunday, the Sinn Féin MP declined to comment on his niece's multi-million pound criminal career. But a party spokesman said: "This is a matter for the courts in England. It has nothing to do with Sinn Féin."

Conor Murphy's star has fallen recently. A former driver of the Sinn Féin politician was arrested and questioned by gardai investigating the brutal IRA murder of Paul Quinn beaten to death in a Co Monaghan barn. Padraig Treanor was later charged with possessing an AK47 rifle.

Just a fortnight ago, Mr Murphy accompanied leading South Armagh republican Sean Hughes to court where Hughes was charged with IRA offences connected to the murder of Belfast man Robert McCartney.

Aoife Madden divides opinion deeply. Those who didn't warm to the Newry actress describe her as ruthlessly manipulative and sly. "Spoilt and money-grabbing – always looking after number one," remarked someone with whom she crossed swords.

Her friends speak of a smart, strong-willed but, most of all, complex woman. She was every inch the fashionista – with a particular penchant for shoes – but beneath the outwardly conventional appearance lay a very non-traditional woman.

Although already facing criminal charges, when asked by an interviewer three months ago about the one thing she would do if she knew she couldn't be caught, she replied: "Rig the lottery."

Those who grew up with her say she saw herself as a femme fatale. Her screen heroine was Rita Hayworth and she adored the movie Gilda. "Aoife could have been anything she wanted," said another ex-school friend. "She was constantly brimming with ideas. She was the total opposite of the dumb model type actress.

"When I read in the papers she was dating Chris Evans, I hated the way she was portrayed because Aoife was nobody's arm candy." Photographed walking along the street holding hands and hugging, Evans and Madden were nicknamed "the ginger duo" in the press. The relationship didn't last long. More recently, Madden was romantically linked to a Middle Eastern–born businessman.

Those present in Southwark Crown Court when she was charged, may initially have reckoned her four male co-accused had taken advantage of the fragile, pale-skinned Irish actress in the dock.

But during proceedings it was revealed that far from being used or a bit player, Madden was integral to the scam. She was a vital accomplice to gang leader Bashar Al-Issa (35), a bankrupt property tycoon from Iraq who was studying at the University of East London.

Al-Issa set up fake companies with the help of his finance lecturer at the university, Tariq Hassan (52). Manchester-born architect Ian Sherwood (53) and engineer Osama Al Baghdady (42), who both knew Al-Issa from his property developing days, also became involved in the plot.

Madden claimed her independent production company, Evolved Pictures – which she had founded in 2010 – was making a blockbuster movie A Landscape of Lies with an unnamed cast of Holywood A-Listers.

She said the movie had received £19 million funding from a Jordanian company. No film was being made and no funding had been secured. The bogus claim was to allow the gang to pocket £2.8 million in VAT and film tax credits meant to help the struggling British film industry.

Madden's four male conspirators set up fake companies and made a series of payments between these companies to provide 'window-dressing' paper-work to present to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

But revenue commissioners became suspicious after paying out £1 million and the five were arrested in April 2011. Desperately needing to convince investigators the project was real, Madden quickly organised a script and low-budget cast.

The gangster thriller, A Landscape of Lies, was made with just £84,000. It featured unknowns and television actors including Loose Women presenter Andrea McLean – who played a bi-sexual therapist – and former EastEnders' actor Marc Bannerman, better known as Gianni di Marco in the soap. Both were unaware of the fiddle.

Despite the shoestring budget, time pressures, and the fact Madden knew the law was breathing down her neck, her film ironically was a huge success. It won a Silver Ace at last year's Las Vegas Film Festival.

"That's what is so sad about all this," says a friend of Madden's. "Aoife has unbelievable talent and she has wasted it with this crazy recklessness." The film itself bizarrely echoed what was secretly unfolding in its Newry producer's life.

A Landscape of Lies was advertised as "a roller coaster of secrets that will draw you into its seedy world of power and lies". The protagonist is enticed into "a twisted underworld full of deceit, double dealing and corruption".

Aoife Madden was born into a comfortable, middle-class family in Newry. The eldest of five children, her father Paul is a property developer. The Maddens' home is a large detached house on the Dublin Road. The young actress inherited her good looks and love of the stage from her mother. Retired school-teacher, Jacqueline Madden (nee Murphy), was involved in amateur dramatics in her youth.

Her brother Conor Murphy, Aoife's uncle, is the local Sinn Féin MP. The family are strongly republican on the maternal side. Aoife's great-grandfather, Jack McElhaw fought alongside legendary IRA commander Frank Aiken in the fourth Northern division during the Anglo-Irish war.

Madden is intensely close to her family. She loved living in London for its lively arts' scene, nightlife and designer boutiques but "Ireland is home and is where I get a lot of inspiration and ideas in open spaces", she remarked.

Although she regularly dined in London's top restaurants, she said there was nothing she loved more than coming home to "mum's apple crumble and Sunday roast". When in England, she kept in regular contact with her Uncle Conor through social media. He was listed on her twitter page – which has since been closed down – as one of her top followers.

She re-tweeted his tweets and corresponded with other Sinn Féin politicians. She showed an avid interest in Irish and international politics. When asked who living or dead she would like to have dinner, she said Michael Collins, Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare – to establish if he did actually write all his plays, Quentin Tarantino and Barrack Obama – to quiz him "about the current state of the USA".

Growing up, Madden said she was "an extremely lively teenager with a lot of drive" who found acting the perfect channel for her energies. She left Newry aged 18 to take a theatre and professional practice degree in Coventry. She went onto the Arts' Educational Drama School in London to do an MA in acting.

After graduating, she secured the lead role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's performance of Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore. She received rave reviews. "Aoife Madden as Mairead shows a grit and exuberance that makes her the obvious star," proclaimed RTE.

Further success swiftly followed. She starred alongside Oscar-winning Holly Hunter and Sorcha Cusack in By the Bog of Cats in the West End. She gave an admirable performance in Agnes a TV drama about Agnes Jones, a Donegal woman who had trained with Florence Nightingale and went on to almost single-handedly transform the horrors of the Liverpool workhouse in the 1860s.

The lack of strong female roles on stage and screen annoyed Madden. "I am keen to work on projects which allow women to explore exciting, challenging and dangerous characters. There's not enough out there for women regarding these types of roles," she said.

What her fellow professionals didn't realise was that Madden craved such a role herself in real life. She mingled with celebrities and an affluent, upmarket audience at film festivals across Europe. But home in London, she was attracted to a rawer world.

Her Twitter account hinted at this dark side. She described herself as "a free-spirited she-wolf always looking for adventure". She hungered for all kinds of experience. Once asked what advice she would give a young actor, she replied: "Get involved in anything you can because you will always learn something new."

Discussing the edgy storyline of her gangster thriller A Landscape of Lies, Madden said: "This is a psychological drama that will challenge society's notion of what is acceptable and normal. It's a messy film but then life is messy. There are so many twists and turns. I want people to come away saying 'Wow, I didn't see that coming!'"

Madden's own reality check arrives tomorrow week when she will be sentenced in court. Many in the Border area where she grew up don't view defrauding Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs of millions of pounds as a crime at all. Fair play, they will say.

Yet the Irish actress's fall from grace in her professional standing is undisputed. A contemporary femme fatale, Aoife Madden's self-destruction was unfortunately played out not on the big screen she aspired to but in real life.

This article appeared in the March 17, 2013 edition of the Irish Mail on Sunday.

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