Crooked Black Country car dealer locked up again after using fake name
A crooked car dealer who ignored a trading ban to con people into buying dangerously sub-standard vehicles has been jailed.
Geoff Badlan had been locked up for 12 months and prohibited from selling cars or advertising them for sale for ten years in 2013 following conviction for 27 offences committed during a carbon copy crime, a judge heard.
But the 45-year-old rogue trader constructed an elaborate cover up to hide the fact he was fleecing customers again and endangering their lives, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.
He launched two businesses - Black Country Logistics and Stourbridge Road Motor Company - and used the former to place 127 adverts of cars for sale on UsedEverywhere.com between August 2017 and May 2018, revealed Mr Mark Jackson, prosecuting on behalf of Dudley Council.
The defendant also advertised on Facebook and used a false name, introducing himself to customers as Mark.
Among them was Chelsey Wesson who viewed a £1,295 2008 Vauxhall Astra Estate on a sales site at Stourbridge Road, Brierley Hill, in March last year.
Badlan tricked her into paying cash for the vehicle without checking it over.
She quickly realised the central locking system did not work but was fobbed off by Badlan when she asked for a refund, the court heard,
She took the vehicle to a reputable garage where mechanics discovered it was riddled with faults ranging from a leaking engine to loose wheel bearings that were more expensive to repair than the Astra was worth.
Ms Wesson complained to Dudley Council's trading Standards Department who discovered Mark was really Geoff Badlan.
Mr Jackson concluded: "The man is a menace with complete disregard for the customer. The longer he is banned from selling cars the safer the public will be."
Mr Carl Templar-Vasey, defending, conceded: "He appreciates that this case mirrors very closely his offences of 2013 and has made it very clear to me that his days of selling cars are over. He knowingly repeated the previous offences and accepts the consequences."
The defendant, from Archer Gardens, Cradley Heath, admitted recklessly engaging in a commercial practice and breaching the 10-year-Anti Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) that outlawed his selling and advertising cars for sale.
He was jailed for 21 months by Judge Martin Jackson who told him: "You are no stranger to dishonesty, showed flagrant disregard to the ASBO and continued to behave in precisely the same way.
"You fleeced the customers of their money, selling them cars that were sub standard and dangerous to them and other road users."
Badlan was also ordered to pay £1,820 compensation to Ms Wesson and was made the subject of a fresh ASBO with the same restrictions that will continue until further order.
