Community work for tax disc fraud
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• Strathclyde haulier Robert Robertson has been sentenced to 240 hours of community service for fraudulently obtaining nearly £5,000 in VED refunds.
Robertson, of Straid Cottages, Lendalfoot, pleaded guilty before Ayr Sheriffs Court to telling the DVLC that vehicle excise licences issued to him had been lost, and when duplicates were issued, surrendering those duplicates and claiming a refund.
But he denied obtaining VED discs by fraud, displaying VED discs with intent to deceive, failing to produce tachograph records and obstructing the police. Those charges were dropped.
The prosecution said that Robertson had reported the loss of two excise licence discs on 29 April 1988. He subsequently surrendered the duplicate discs and claimed refunds £4,908.33.
The offences were discovered when two vehicles were stopped by traffic examiners and the police at Beattock Summit and the A77 truck road at Ayr. For Robertson, it was said the offences had not been committed for any gain, but purely to enable him to continue to keep the vehicles on the road.
He was now bankrupt and his wife was being harassed over debts, it was said. Robertson was a hard working man: the only convictions recorded against him were for road traffic offences.
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