A HOUSEHUSBAND who ran a sideline business 'clocking' cars – including an Aston Martin DB9 – has been jailed for nine months.

Colin Ogle, 50, of Witts Lane, Purton, earned thousands of pounds reducing the mileage on dozens of cars.

When investigators raided his home they not only found the tools of his trade but diaries and receipts documenting his crime.

He had been earning between £75 and £265 a time for the work with customers including M4, Austen Trading and Global Car and Commercial.

Michael Austen, owner of Austen Trading, said he had not done business with Mr Ogle for more than a year. "We only used him for legitimate reasons, such as radio decoding," he said.

This is the first time the provider of “mileage correction services”, rather than the seller of clocked vehicles, has been convicted under consumer law.

The case follows the Office of Fair Trading’s market study into the used-car sector in 2010 which estimated the potential loss to consumers from the purchase of vehicles with false mileage is up to £580m a year.

Ogle was sentenced yesterday at Swindon Crown Court after he had previously admitted five charges under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and eight charges under the Fraud Act 2006 and asked for 19 other matters to be taken into consideration.

Ogle owned a business that advertised and provided a mileage correction service claiming to fix a range of problems with car, bike and van dashboards, such as making changes to speedometers and odometers.

He accepted that he adjusted vehicle odometers and had failed to take proper steps to check the reasons for requested mileage corrections or keep proper records in 70 to 100 instances.

The court heard a customer brought a 5 Series BMW to him in August 2007 with 113,502 miles on the clock.

For a fee of £80 he wiped off more than 93,000 miles and the car was then used as a taxi for a year before being sold at auction showing just 49,000 miles.

The dealer who bought it then sold it on, not knowing it had been clocked, and when it was sold soon after the eventual buyer soon found it to be a write- off.

Chris Oswald, defending, said his client's main line was decoding car stereos and he fell into car clocking at first for legitimate reasons.

He said it could be done if a car had been damaged in an accident, vandalised or had a malfunction.

Mr Oswald said: “He was not part of obtaining the money from the public. He accepts he took a laissez faire attitude to ensuring the management of vehicles was legitimate.”

As well as jailing Ogle, judge Euan Ambrose also ordered him to pay £3,649.20 towards prosecution costs within 28 days.

The Adver approached M4, and Global Car and Commercial for comments but received no response.