TRADING Standards officers were congratulated at Chester Crown Court following the successful prosecution of a Crewe couple for 'clocking' vehicles.

Mark and Marie Brooks, of Smallbrook Walk, were between them ordered to pay £34,000 in costs and compensation. He pleaded guilty to five offences and she admitted one.

The court heard that from April last year they bought cars from a dealer in Wigan and turned the mileage clocks back to under 100,000 miles and then sold them on for a higher price than their worth in Auto Trader.

The pair were also given suspended prison sentences, Mark Brookes was given 10 months and 150 hours unpaid community work. Marie Brookes was given a three-month suspended sentence with a supervision order.

Peter Moss, prosecuting, said: 'No one came forward to complain about the pair but Keith Harrison and his team, who browse through Auto Trader regularly, noticed a suspicious pattern of low mileage, older commercial vans being sold under different names but with similar contact details.

'After tracking the vehicles they were able to find the history of the vehicles and their original mileage.'

The Recorder of Chester, Elgan Edwards, said: 'Mr Harrison must be congratulated. This reflects and brings home the message that you must be careful if you are going to embark on this scheme because people are watching and you will be caught.'

The Brooks were spared a custodial sentence in order that they may re-mortgage their house to enable them to pay the £20,066 costs and the £13,645 compensation to customers who were hoodwinked.

Speaking afterwards Mr Harrison said: 'This has been a fantastic opportunity for us to show the public that we do work behind the scenes to protect them from fraud cases like this.'