A FRAUDSTER crippled a family business when he used a stolen credit card to issue a huge chargeback on a car which engineers had been modifying for two weeks.

Brian Daly, 39, was jailed by magistrates on Wednesday after he was found guilty on two counts of fraud following a trial he did not attend.

He shouted, “I love you, mum”, when he was led to the cells by prison officers.

​The offences, which were committed during the Covid pandemic, led to a car customisation business, S6 Wraps, going bust.

Thirteen people were made redundant.

Court – Brian Daly appeared in court on Wednesday to be sentenced for the offencesCourt – Brian Daly appeared in court on Wednesday to be sentenced for the offences (Image: Daniel Rees, Newsquest) The court heard Daly had taken his Mercedes to S6 Wraps in 2021 when he used a credit card belonging to pensioner Noel Hastings to pay for £4,800 of bodywork.

He paid an extra £500 in case any further work had to be carried out and hired out a courtesy car from the business for 13 days whilst the Mercedes was modified.

Within hours of leaving the garage in his modified Mercedes later that month, Daly requested a chargeback of £5,300.

Stuart Cowen, prosecuting, said: “It is the crown’s case he fraudulently used the bank card of Hastings to pay for the goods.

“During interview, Daly claimed he didn’t make the payments and that they were claimed by Hastings, who owed him money.”

The court was told Hastings, who was housebound and in his 80s at the time of the offence, has since died.

A victim impact statement written by Amie Walton, whose family owned S6 Wraps, was read out by the prosecution.

It said: “When he committed the fraud we struggled for months to recover from this loss, resulting in us having to close.

“At the time, we were in the middle of the Covid pandemic when times were extremely tough within the business anyway.

Victim – Noel Hastings, who was a housebound in his 80s, was a victim of the fraud committed by Brian DalyVictim – Noel Hastings, who was a housebound pensioner in his 80s, was a victim of the fraud committed by Brian Daly (Image: Pexels) “We were left with debt that has only just been cleared in January 2023.”

Paula Fell, mitigating, said Daly had always denied the fraud and “has his own version of events”.

She added the defendant, of Linnet Way in Great Bentley, is almost completely paralysed from the waist down due to a back injury and suffers from a form of schizophrenia.

Magistrates jailed Daly for a year but did not order him to pay compensation.