Nadeem Younis has been sentenced at Reading magistrates after he was found guilty on three counts of breaching the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
The offences date back to 2011 when he advertised and sold a car on Auto Trader which had previously been damaged in an accident.
Younis failed to disclose the damage to the buyer who only discovered the car’s true history when it later broke down with a radiator leak.
The garage investigating the leak found numerous replacement parts, including a new bonnet and a buckled subframe.
A Trading Standards investigation found evidence that Younis, who claimed to be a private seller, regularly traded cars and had sold 19 vehicles in the space of 18 months, advertising the vehicles using the trade name Brookevale.
In giving judgement, Judge Khan said there was “compelling evidence Younis was a car trader” due to the degree of regularity in his trading.
He was sentenced to a conditional discharge for 12 months and must pay £1,000 towards the council’s costs in addition to £500 compensation awarded to the victim.
