8:28 am, January 12, 2026
A luxury car dealer has been jailed for conning customers out of a staggering £1.5m in a ‘sustained and calculated’ campaign of fraud.
John Hawkins spent more than two decades selling high-end motors via his business, Specialist Cars of Malton, with the firm building up a strong reputation for its expertise on Porsche vehicles in particular.
However, when business began to slow back in 2018, the 66-year-old owner undertook a lengthy ‘campaign of dishonesty’ which saw him run elaborate scams in order to boost his own pockets.
The firm eventually collapsed into administration and then liquidation in 202o with a subsequent police investigation uncovering the full extent of Hawkins’ deception.
He has now appeared at Bradford Crown Court where he pleaded guilty to multiple fraud charges.
The court heard that the retailer often sold cars on a ‘sale or return’ basis but Hawkins would regularly fail to give clients their money and instead pocketed the cash himself. He also sold other vehicles without the knowledge or agreement of their owners.
On other occasions, he obtained large sums of money advanced to him under finance agreements he was not entitled to enter into, and when confronted by customers wanting their money, he gave personal guarantees and assigned ownership of other vehicles he did not own as security.
He also made money by setting up bogus investment schemes, which offered more than 100 people the chance to buy shares in Porsche vehicles, which he not even own.
The campaign had a major impact on Hawkins’ victims – many of whom were his close friends who would meet him for dinner and stay at his house.
One man – described by the defendant as one of his closest friends – was forced to sell his belongings to avoid losing his house, having been persuaded to invest a substantial sum of money he never saw again.
During the hearing, Hawkins accepted that his various scams had cost victims a total of £1.5m, dating from late 2018.
After hearing all the evidence, Judge Ahmed Nadim sentenced Hawkins to five years and three months in prison. The disgraced car dealer was also banned from serving as a company director for the next decade.
Speaking to Hawkins at the end of the hearing, the judge said: ‘Your actions were a sustained and calculated campaign of dishonesty. Your fraud was to a degree sophisticated and persistent.’
He also accused the defendant of ‘exploiting personal trust for financial gain’, adding: ‘The impact on your victims is severe involving betrayal, anxiety and the loss of lifelong savings.’
The sentence was welcomed by North Yorkshire Police, which ran the investigation into Hawkins and Specialist Cars of Malton.
Constable Emma Harris, a fraud investigator for the force, said: ‘In order to maintain the façade of a successful business, Hawkins lied to customers time and time again, and falsified documents to give credence to those lies.
‘The financial and emotional impact on his victims has been nothing short of devastating, and it is right that he now faces a lengthy prison sentence.’
A further hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act will now take place later in the year where the authorities will seek to confiscate assets gained from Hawkins’ criminal activity.
