Car Had Odometer Wound Back Over 125,000 Miles!
A garage owner who rewound the odometer on a Vauxhall Vectra car to give the impression that it had done 75,000 miles when in actual fact it had travelled in excess of 200,000 miles has been successfully prosecuted by Warwickshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service.
Mark Anthony Harrington (DoB: 27th September 1961) of Hadrians Walk Alcester, trading as HVR Motors Unit 1 Althorpe St. Leamington Spa was found guilty of four offences under the Trade Descriptions Act and Theft Act.
Trading Standards Officers were alerted to the case by the consumer who purchased the vehicle. The consumer saw the vehicle advertised by the roadside in Alcester in October 2004 by means of a handwritten sign in the window of the vehicle showing a mileage of around 75,000 miles. She agreed to buy it for £1400.
Soon after she experienced a problem with the vehicle’s clutch, and the defendant, Mr Harrington, refunded her £100. However it cost the consumer £500 to have the problem put right at a different garage, and it was this garage that alerted her to the fact the vehicle had done more mileage than the odometer was showing.
An investigation by the Trading Standards Service revealed that when Mr Harrington purchased the vehicle from a local car auction in March 2004 the vehicle’s documentation showed that the car had a mileage of 213,000 miles at the time of its sale. However, when the vehicle was MOTed by HVR Motors in October 2004 a copy of an MOT certificate showed that the car had a mileage of 75,120 miles.
The vehicles purchaser stated that she would not have bought the car if she had known it had travelled over 200,000 miles.
Anthea Davies Assistant Head of Warwickshire Trading Standards said:
‘Altering the odometer reading on a vehicle and offering it for sale with a reduced mileage is clearly a deliberate means of conning people in to parting with their hard earned cash.
We in Warwickshire Trading Standards take such matters very seriously and will consider legal action against any rogues who get involved in this deception.’
At Rugby Magistrates Court on Tuesday 20th June 2006, Mark Harrington was found guilty of four offences. The first offence alleged that Mr Harrington applied a false trade description to the car by means of a notice in the window stating that the car had done a mileage of around 75,000 miles. The second and third offences alleged that Mr Harrington had supplied the car with a false trade description on the odometer and by means of the sign in the window respectively. And finally the fourth offence alleged that Mr Harrington had obtained by deception the sum of £1300, the deception being that the car purported to have travelled around 75,000 miles when in fact it had travelled over 200,000 miles, and the £1300 representing the price paid for the car by the purchaser.
Mark Harrington was fined £1000 on the first Trade Descriptions Act offence, with no separate penalty for the two further offences, and ordered to pay £600 compensation to the car buyer, plus £1400 prosecution costs. The penalty on the fourth Theft Act offence was considered at Leamington Magistrates on Thursday 29th June 2006. Magistrates decided to impose a conditional discharge for two years and ordered Mr Harrington to pay a further £112 costs which was consolidated with the previous order.
At Rugby Magistrates Court it was said in mitigation that Mark Harrington’s business, HVR Motors was up for sale and that he did not intend to carry on in the motor repair trade. There was an overdraft on the business of £25,000. The equipment at the garage was on hire purchase and it was hoped that the sale of the business would satisfy all the business’s debts. Mr Harrington also had a personal overdraft of £12,500. It was further stated that the defendant had personal problems and had been suffering from stress.
Ann Belcher represent Warwickshire County Council
Mr Harrington was represented by Counsel, Miss Jane Sarginson of St Phillips Chambers Birmingham.
The Trade Descriptions Act 1968 makes it an offence to apply a false trade description to goods or to supply or offer to supply goods with a false trade description applied.
The Theft Act 1968 makes it an offence to obtain property (including money) by deception.