A FORMER police officer has started an 18 month jail sentence for handling stolen cars and parts.

Gordon Viccars, of Villa Road, Higham, near Gravesend, admitted four charges involving two Land Rover Defenders, a Range Rover and a Mitsubishi Shogun, worth a total of almost £18,000.

Catharine Donnelly, prosecuting, said Viccars, 63, advertised car parts on an international website for Land Rover under a different name.

Police raided his home in March last year and seized cars and parts. All four cars in the charges had been stolen. Miss Donnelly said a large number of emails showed that Viccars was involved in the sale and distribution of Land Rover parts.

He told police when arrested in May last year that he advertised on the website and everything seemed to snowball. He said he had become suspicious about the provenance of the parts, but did not contact the police.

Miss Donnelly said Viccars had previous convictions for similar offences. In March 1997, he was jailed for 21 months.

Francis Lloyd, defending, said Viccars put himself in the category of enthusiastic amateur, rather than professional dealer.

He had been receiving the goods from two men he knew only as Bob and Brian and at first had no reason to believe they were dishonest.

"But as the quality of goods got better, he began to realise there was something amiss," Mr Lloyd told Maidstone Crown Court.

"Mr Viccars has been in trouble three times in his life. He started life as a policeman. He worked for a bank for many years. It has only been when involved with cars that he has fallen prey to dishonesty."

Mr Lloyd said Viccars, a grandfather whose wife is a carer, led a modest life and the motor trade had not made him rich. He was suitable, he said, for a community punishment order.

Judge Michael Neligan said when he first read the papers on the case he thought he would be passing a sentence of at least two and a half years.

But he added: "Having heard more of the case and mitigation advanced by your counsel, while imprisonment remains inevitable, a sentence of 18 months will suffice."