A pair of fraudsters who roamed Scotland buying cars and pedigree dogs with phony cheques in a £25,000 fraud were today behind bars.
Ronald Saunders and William Stewart used cheques from Mr Stewart’s brother’s chequebook to buy a succession of vehicles – before Stewart then handed over a £800 cheque to buy a chihuahua from a breeder.
But the cheques all bounced – leaving the owners between £750 and £7000 out of pocket.
The pair’s scam traversed the north and east of Scotland – with frauds carried out in Forfar, Dundee, Aberdeen, Muir of Ord in the Highlands, Fraserburgh, Inverness, St Andrews and Kinross.
Fiscal depute Vicki Bell told Dundee Sheriff Court: “This case relates to each accused travelling separately around Scotland presenting fraudulent cheques from a chequebook which did not belong to them, in exchange for motor vehicles and a dog.
“The cheques were not honoured by the bank for two reasons.
“First, there were not sufficient funds to cover the amounts of the cheques and second that the chequebook had been cancelled as a result of the brother reporting it as lost.
“He had received a visit from his brother and realised after he had left that his cheque book was missing.
“In terms of accused Saunders there was no recovery of the motor vehicles, which were valued between £750 and £4,995 – a total of £8,945.
“The private owners of these cars had advertised them for sale on the internet and received a call from a male who offered to buy the car.
“Soon after Saunders would arrive with a cheque already written out, and the cheques would subsequently be returned by the bank unpaid.
“Accused Stewart used the cheques to buy cars valued between £970 and £7000 – totalling £15,920.
“He also bought a dog – a chihuahua – for £800.
“Some of these were from private sellers on the internet and others were from motor traders.
“He pretended to be Mr D A Stewart – his brother’s name – and presented cheques in that name which were unpaid by the bank.”
Saunders, 57, of Balmoral Gardens, Dundee, and Stewart, 54, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pleaded guilty on indictment to charges of forming a fraudulent scheme.
Sheriff Alistair Brown jailed Saunders for 20 months and Stewart for 34 months.
He said: “Each of you embarked on a deliberate and persistent course of fraud.
“Each of you caused loss to the people involved.
“I don’t know their financial situations but you took a significant asset from them with utter disregard to that, purely for your own gain.
“Those who embark on a fraudulent scheme of this scale must expect ot be treated very seriously by the court.
“And those who cheat hard-working member of the public can expect no sympathy.”