Man sold diggers he did not own (From The Northern Echo)

Man sold diggers he did not own

8:00am Monday 20th February 2012 in Darlington By Neil Hunter

THE brains behind a £250,000 scam is starting a two-and-ahalf- year prison sentence for selling diggers which did not belong to him.

Matthew Segger took photographs of the machines at farms and building sites, put them on the internet and persuaded people to pay for them.

Customers arranged for low-loaders and staff to go to sites across the North to collect their equipment – only to find they had been conned.

The machines had either been moved on, or the real owners had no knowledge of the deals or Segger.

Segger, 23, from Darlington, tricked unsuspecting victims from as far afield as Poland and Slovenia, as well as Staffordshire and Scotland.

Teesside Crown Court heard how he used several different names on the internet and had the cash paid into the bank accounts of two friends.

The scam started in October 2010, when he legitimately hired a JCB from a North Yorkshire firm for his father’s groundworking business.

Segger “sold” the £24,000 machine on e-Bay, even though it did not belong to him, then sold it again to a second online customer.

Judge Peter Armstrong heard Segger had gambling and drugs debts, but they were not wiped out by his first fraud.

Segger went on to tour North Yorkshire and County Durham, taking pictures of plant and putting them on the internet as if they were his.

Money was paid into the accounts of friends Jonathan Lockey, 22, and Michael Dauber, 22, and Segger would withdraw it when it cleared.

Ian West, prosecuting, told the court: “He was clearly the driving force and the brains behind this fraud.”

Segger’s barrister, Dan Cordey, told the court: “What went on was not sophisticated.

It was always going to come back to this defendant.”

Mr Cordey told Judge Armstrong that the crime-wave had shamed Segger’s family and damaged the reputation of his father’s business.

Brian Russell, for agricultural worker Dauber, of Heathrow, Thornaby, near Stockton, said: “He is someone who has been used. He is someone who trusted a friend.”

Lockey’s barrister, Carl Swift, said the father-of-two, of Hurworth Road, Darlington, was short of money after losing his job.

Segger, of Linden Drive, Darlington, admitted nine charges of fraud, one of theft and two of conspiracy to convert criminal property.

Dauber was jailed for nine months and Lockey received eight months, after they admitted conspiracy to convert criminal property.