A rogue car dealer who clocked over one million miles from cars and vans before selling them on to unsuspecting buyers has been jailed for 18 months.
Lee Morris, 40, pocketed thousands by buying clapped-out vehicles from travellers before altering the mileage and selling them on.
His fraud included clocking enough miles from ten vehicles to travel to the moon and back.
In once instance he took off a staggering 425,000 miles from a Mercedes Vito, which was previously used as a taxi.
Morris, traded as LWM Commercials from his home in Bedminster, Bristol, and claimed to have an annual turnover of #190,000.
He denied the charges but was found guilty of ten fraud charges at Bristol Crown Court on Thursday.
Alan Fuller, prosecuting, said: ”We say that this defendant has, for some time, been ripping people off.
”He has been selling them vehicles that have been clocked, and by that we mean altering the mileage display to lower than the true mileage.”
The court heard how Morris mainly traded in German Mercedes or VW vans.
In 2008, a customer complained to Bristol City Council trading standards that he had evidence Morris was altering the mileage of his vehicles.
An investigation showed that between October 2007 and September 2008 an MoT testing station had been presented with 20 vehicles where mileages were significantly lower than official national records.
Trading standards officers contacted as many of the vehicle owners as possible and found the cars had been clocked.
In evidence, Morris said he bought and repaired used vans and was proud of the top notch way he could renovate them.
He said: ”I didn’t put speedometer readings on my invoices. I’ve got nothing to hide. I’ve done nothing wrong as far as I know. I didn’t set out to cheat the public, 100 per cent definitely not.”
