Cattle dealers £50,000 fraud
Cattle dealers £50,000 fraud
A CATTLE dealer swindled farmers out of more than £50,000 at the height of the BSE crisis by issuing false invoices, a court has heard.
Roger Lampier, of Chacewater, Cornwall, admitted fraud charges when he appeared before Truro Crown Court last week.
He was given only a 12 months sentence suspended for two years after the court heard that his health had given way due to the pressure of the case. But he was ordered to pay £24,000 compensation.
The court heard that when there was a backlog of animals waiting to go to abattoirs in 1996, Mr Lampier had taken farmers cattle on to his land and had then sent them on to the abattoir for a £13 a head charge.
But when he received the compensation from the slaughterhouse he passed only a portion of it on to the farmers claiming, through false invoices, that the cattle had weighed less than they did. *