A car dealer who posed as a trading standards officer to try and recover a dangerous car sold to a customer has been jailed for 12 months.
Jonathan Goulding, prosecuting, said the car’s new owner noticed a crunching noise the day after buying the vehicle and took it to her local garage which identified serious faults on the 2005 Honda CR-V Sport.
The garage found the vehicle’s prop shaft and rear drive shafts were missing, which Goulding said meant the car’s brakes could fail and the rear wheels could come off.
The Garage reported the car to trading standards who seized the vehicle and said it should not be moved from the premises.
Trading standards contacted the dealership where Drury worked and he then drove to the garage in a recovery vehicle to try to recover it while posing as a Trading Standards officer.
When garage staff became suspicious and challenged him he gave a false name.
The court heard Drury had previous convictions for dishonesty and common assault.
He admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice and pleaded guilty to the supply of a dangerous product on a limited basis that he had no involvement in the sale.
Drury was the car buyer for the garage where the woman had been sold the car – the court heard he bought and sold more than 1,000 cars a year.
Passing sentence Judge Simon Hirst told Drury he was a “dishonest man” and described the condition of the car as potentially “catastrophic.”