A LLANDRINDOD Wells man who tried to falsely sell a lawn mower on the internet has been given a suspended jail sentence.
Christopher Llewelyn Kerrell, 27, of Dolau pleaded guilty to the offence when he appeared before magistrates in Llandrindod Wells on Wednesday, February 23.
He had previously denied that between February 2 and February 22, 2010, he had intended to make a gain of £705 having promised to sell a lawn mower which had already sold to another.
Prosecuting, Kevin Challinor told the court that the complainant runs an agricultural business and wanted to buy a lawn mower from Kerrell via the internet auction site eBay.
On January 17 last year, the complainant spotted the item for sale online and made enquiries, agreeing a price with Kerrell.
The defendant asked for a cheque to be made out to Mrs M. Kerrell, which was posted and cashed on February 26.
The complainant agreed to collect the machine in May but was unable to get hold of Kerrell via telephone or email. By May 18 he discovered that Kerrell's eBay account was now inactive and soon spotted the mower up for sale once again, under the username ‘CK Contracting’.
That item had been sold to a buyer in Powys, which prompted the complainant to contact CK Contracting.
He said the seller had 24 hours to respond or legal action would be taken. There was no response so the matter was reported to the police. The CK Contracting eBay account was also then shut down.
On July 29, Kerrell was interviewed by police and said the complainant must have come and collected the mower, as it was gone from his yard. He said the new sale was a separate mower.
When he appeared in court in November 2010, he pleaded not guilty to the charge, but changed his plea on Wednesday.
Mitigating, Owain Jones confirmed that Kerrell did have previous convictions for fraud, for bounced cheques in 2004.
“This wasn’t a sophisticated crime, it was opportunistic and he was out of work at the time,” Mr Jones said. “He has glowing character references and he will have employment by the end of this month. The running theme from the reports is that he is growing up.”
Sentencing, magistrates said this was not a set of offences to be proud of.
“Ebay needs to be truthful so that buyers have faith in it. You have busted that truth,” said magistrate June Pettitt. “It was devious in the way you tried to do it.”
Kerrell, who is moving to England, was sentenced to 28 days imprisonment suspended for 18 months, as part of a supervised community order. He was also ordered to complete 180 hours unpaid work.