by Keith Hunt

Wheelchair-bound Stephen Court has been jailed for five years for his role in a multi-million pound fraud.

The plot was described by a judge as "fraudulent from the outset, and professionally planned".

Judge Charles McDonald, QC, told Court that had he been a fit man, the sentence would have been six years.

Court, 58, of Cherwell Farm, Bean, Dartford, was also banned from being a company director for 12 years.

If followed his conviction for a £3.8million VAT fraud and money laundering.

His daughter, Nicola Puttick, 29, was convicted of money laundering.

The mother-of-two broke down as she was sent to prison for 18 months.

She had used around £170,000 of the fraudulent funds to pay for treatment at the Mayo Clinic in America for her father, who had been refused the treatment by the NHS.

Puttick, of Stanhope Road, Swanscombe, and her father, had been found guilty by a jury at Maidstone Crown Court on June 18, following a trial that began early in April.

David Kemp, 36, of West Cliff Road, Ramsgate, was jailed for a total of three years and four months.

He had pleaded guilty to being involved in a VAT repayment fraud conspiracy and conspiring to defraud fuel companies and various other companies.

Kemp, described as "a lieutenant" to his uncle, Jean Paul Dalton - who has absconded - received the longest term for the VAT offence>

He also got concurrent terms of 24 months and 12 months for the other two offences, plus 14 days consecutive for a bail act offence.

Judge McDonald said the offences were too serious for anything other than immediate custody.

He added: "Activities of this kind have a corrosive effect on the economic state of this country.

"A tax fraudster steals from his fellow citizens."