FORMER police officer John Wildman has had nearly £270,000 of assets confiscated from him after being convicted of fraud in connection with his Urchfont car dealership.

In 2012 Wildman, 70, of Littleton Pannell, near Devizes was jailed for 20 months after admitting 18 charges of fraud connected with his business between 2006 and 2008.

Wildman’s son Jason, from Park Road, Market Lavington, had pleaded guilty to six charges jointly with his father was sentenced to 10 months, suspended for 12 months, and ordered him to undertake 300 hours of unpaid work in the community.

In November, 2013, he was ordered to pay back £127,443 under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Now John Wildman has appeared before Winchester Crown Court and had assets of £269,758.25 confiscated. He was ordered to pay the full amount immediately, with a default sentence of four years in prison if he fails to pay within a maximum period of six months.

His partner at the time of his fraudulent activity, Julie Lanfear of Littleton Panell, was not in court to face similar confiscation proceedings.

Wiltshire police say it is anticipated that she will appear in court within the next month to face these proceedings in relation to money laundering.

Andrew Stonell, the financial investigator for Wiltshire Police, said: “It is important that criminals do not benefit financially from their crimes and enjoy a life-style funded with criminal funds. In this case it is appropriate that Mr Wildman, who at the time was operating a largely fraudulent car dealership, is now required to hand over the proceeds of his ill-gotten gains."

In 2012 Winchester Crown Court was told John Wildman wove a web of fraud in a vain attempt to keep his business from going into liquidation.

The court heard that the offences came to light when Alan Heather, whose company Horseshoe Properties had been supplying vehicles to Wildmans 4x4 Services on a sale-or-return basis for a number of years, complained to the police that he had not received payment for 10 vehicles he had supplied, valued at £171,000.

Wiltshire Police began an investigation and it transpired that Wildman had entered into hire purchase agreements with Hermes Finance, another company Wildmans had done business with for some years, in which Hermes paid cash for the vehicles. The payments were in default from very soon after the start of the contracts.

In order to get the agreements, Wildman had to convince Hermes that the vehicles had been paid for. To do this, he forged the sale-or-return invoices he had received from Mr Heather.

Wildman then sold on seven of the vehicles to unsuspecting customers who paid full price for vehicles that had already, in effect, been “sold” to Hermes Finance and, on one occasion, to Carlyle Finance.

Wildman had joined the police force after leaving school at 16 but left to start his own motor business in Urchfont in 1971.