A car dealer who was jailed for 12 months last year for fraud, consumer protection and fraudulent trading has been told to pay back more than £52,000.
Ateeq-U-Rehman Maroof, 49, had been found guilty of seven charges at Salisbury Crown Court in April 2019 after selling a dangerously defective BMW X5 to a customer from Wiltshire at his Bristol showroom.
At the time, the court was told that an expert witness for Wiltshire Trading Standards, which brought the prosecution, had described the car as ‘dangerous’ and not fit to be driven because it had tyres, brakes and suspension problems – the inner cords were even visible on one of the tyres.
But Maroof denied selling the car when the customer attempted to reject it and he moved his business, altering the name to Car Yard Ltd from Auto Motive Solutions (Bristol) Ltd.
Now a judge at Winchester Crown Court has said that Maroof, of Drummond Road, Bournemouth, has to pay back £52,166. An assessment of his finances said that he’d made nearly half a million pounds – £425,163 – as a car dealer.
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