Jail term on hold for car sales thief

A THIEVING car salesman from Oldham fiddled £11,000 from the company he worked for, because he was too proud to ask his family for financial help

Daman Peel (26), a trusted employee of Stockport Audi dealership Smith, Knight and Fay, took the money over a period of ten months by criminally abusing his position.

Though he earned good money from his job, he got himself badly into debt after buying a new house..

He was sacked after his bosses discovered his dishonesty, but Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court was told he then got another job with a city-based car franchise business, but had not told his new employer of the trouble he was in.

Sentencing him to a total of twelve months in prison, suspended for two years, Recorder Rachel Smith told him: “These were serious breaches of trust. They were sophisticated, and they were prolonged.”

She told him it was troubling that he had gone on to deceive his new employers.

She said, however, that as a man of previous good character, she felt the public interest could still be served by suspending the prison term for two years.

The court was told that Peel, of Ten Houses, Oldham, took the money, much of which paid by customers as deposits on new vehicles, over a period between August, 2009 and October last year.

None of the money he has admitted taking has been recovered, though another £1,349 was found hidden in the glove box of a car in the showroom where he had worked.

Francis Nance, prosecuting, said that the dealership had been aware of losses of £5,500 at the time they dismissed him at the end of last year.

When a police investigation was launched, however, it became evident that he had taken twice as much.

Peel pleaded guilty to seven charges of fraud, three offences of false accounting, and one of theft.

Stephen McHugh defending, said his client who alleged he could earn up to £3,000 per month with commission, had had no problems until buying a house.

He said: “He realised that bills were far larger than he had envisaged, and he behaved in an embarrassing and shameful fashion, because he had too much foolish pride to ask his father for help.”

Peel has also been made subject of a 12-month supervision order, ordered to carry out 200 hours unpaid community work and he must repay the £11,000 he took.