The director of a Hampshire haulage firm has been sentenced to 12 months in prison after he attempted to defraud the taxpayer out of almost £40,000.
Trevor Oakley, 63, submitted a VAT repayment claim to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) for the purchase of two lorries using fake invoices that totalled 37,598.
Oakley was a director of Oakley Logistics, a freight transport company based in Marchwood, near Southampton.
In July 2018, HMRC contacted the director and requested more information to support the claim and Oakley emailed a fake hire purchase agreement.
Later that month, an HMRC officer visited Oakley and was told the lorries were already on the road in Scotland and could not be shown to him.
HMRC said he did not have any DVLA documents.
He was interviewed under caution the following month and later pleaded not guilty to the charge of fraudulent submission of a VAT repayment claim and two counts of making, adapting, supplying or offering to supply an article for use in fraud.
After a three-day hearing in Southampton Crown Court he was found guilty by a jury and was sentenced to 12 months, suspended for two years.
He was also given 200 hours of unpaid work, disqualified as a director for three years and issued with court costs of £1,000.
Zoe Ellerbeck, assistant director of HMRC’s fraud investigation service, said: “HMRC will pursue criminals who attack the tax system.”
