Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
A builder who wrote a cheque for £14,000 to Travis Perkins when he only had 36p in his account has been sent to jail for seven years.
At Ipswich Crown Court, a jury found Peter Giblin of Northampton, guilty of three offences of fraud by false representation and six offences of theft, according to the Northampton Chronicle.
Cheques written by Giblin bounced and non of the machinery – worth tens of thousands of pounds – has ever been recovered.
Giblin rented a JCB excavator, two hot boxes for tarmac, two dumper trucks, two Volvo mini excavators a roller and trailer and another digger from plant hire companies in the Midlands, Yorkshire, Staffordshire and Suffolk.
It was alleged that while Giblin had signed rental agreements for all the machinery, he only ever paid a very small proportion of what he owed before the items all “vanished”.
The offences were said to have been committed between September last year and May this year.
Detective Constable James Cassidy of Suffolk Police told the jury that checks on Giblin’s bank accounts revealed that when a cheque he wrote for £14,000 to Travis Perkins in Birmingham bounced, Giblin had just 36p available at the bank.
