A cheating businessman ripped off £35,500 from a trusting customer – after selling him a Mercedes he didn’t own!

Jude Cook ran Kent Car Collection from an office in Bromstone Road, Broadstairs.

The 47 year old father of two claimed he scoured the Internet to find top-of-the-range vehicles which he then sold on.

But Canterbury Crown Court heard that the Mercedes he offered to Dutch businessman Nico Aldering for more than £35,000 was never his to sell.

Prosecutor Vivian Walters told how Mr Aldering never received the vehicle, and the fraudster pocketed the cash.

When the victim complained about the rip-off Cook – who has previous convictions for fraud eight years ago – offered to repay him in instalments… but Mr Aldering rejected the offer and reported the fraud to police.

Cook, who has since moved to Wales to set up two new Internet businesses, eventually pleaded guilty after asking for time before sentencing to stump up the cash through his new ventures.

Judge Heather Norton agreed to postpone sentence...and instead of coughing up £35,500...Cook managed £1250.

The court heard how he had decided to “reinvest” the thousands of pounds of profit into his new companies.

The wheeler-dealer had been calling himself Marcos Jude and in 2015 advertised under the title Classics4sale: “Sell your Classics Absolutely Free, Find your New Dream Car, Dealers Get your whole inventory Listed and seen By thousands of Visitors world wide.”

He later claimed to act as “an honest broker” in finding cars and then selling them onto a third-party.

But the court heard how in 2009 he had been given a 51-week jail sentence suspended for two years after admitting making false representations and other deception charges.

The judge told him: “Three years after that order had come to an end you were at it again..you had learnt nothing.”

She said she had read and compared reports from two different probation officers prepared in 2009 and this year.

“It has been interesting to read the facts of both cases and the explanations you put forward...put together they paint a picture of someone who doesn’t think he has been doing anything wrong and has learnt nothing from the lessons they have been taught

“It is a picture of someone who prioritises himself above other people and his own interest above other people’s money.”

The judge said sentence wasn’t adjourned so Cook could “buy his way out of prison” but so he could “put his money where his mouth was” and make the payments he had promised.

“I read in the probation reports that you could have done it..but chose not to. You chose to prioritise yourself.”

Cook, who had admitted fraud on the day of his trial, was jailed for 16 months.

His barrister John Fitzgerald told the court: “I had hoped to tell the court that he had paid back at least a substantial part of the money..it’s a shame I am unable to do so as he has paid back just £1250.”

He said Cook had gone to Wales after being declared bankrupt in Kent, losing his business and home.