Fraudster tried to save his Urchfont business
5:00pm Sunday 12th February 2012 in News By Lewis Cowen
Father and Son John and Jason Wildman
Urchfont garage owner John Wildman wove a web of fraud in a vain attempt to keep his business from going into liquidation, Winchester Crown Court heard on Friday February 3.
Wildman, 68, of High Street, Littleton Panell, was jailed for 20 months after admitting 18 charges of fraud connected with his business between 2006 and 2008.
Michael Butt, prosecuting, told Recorder Christopher Parker QC 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.
Mr Butt said 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 what Mr Butt described as “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.
Mr Butt said: “The first thing a customer would have known about it was when he or she wanted to sell it and found there was a finance agreement on the car.
“Some customers only discovered it after a visit from the police.”
Wildman’s 37-year-old son Jason, from Park Road, Market Lavington, had pleaded guilty to six charges jointly with his father, none of which related to the onward sale of the vehicles to unsuspecting customers.
Alex Daymond, defending John Wildman, said his client had been in the motor trade for 40 years and had never done anything dishonest until 2006.
Wildman had joined the police force after leaving school at 16 but left to start his own motor business in Urchfont in 1971.
In 1990, Urchfont Garage had gone into liquidation and he had started up again as Daymon Limited.
“It became apparent in 2006 that the business was in trouble.
Mr Daymond said: “He should have liquidated the business but his sons, who were in the business with him, had mortgages to pay and families to support.
“What he did was fully dishonest but he was naive enough to believe he could pay the money back.
“He stuck his head in the sand and continued to forge invoices.”
Mr Parker, having read pre-sentence reports on both defendants, sent John Wildman to prison for 20 months and sentenced Jason Wildman to 10 months, suspended for 12 months, and ordered him to undertake 300 hours of unpaid work in the community.
Both will face confiscation of their assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act. A hearing on this is likely to take place in July.
The two men shook hands before John Wildman was taken down to the cells.
