A NOTORIOUS car dealer has admitted defrauding customers when selling them used vehicles.

Stan Rudgley pleaded guilty to five charges of making “dishonest representations and sales practices” in relations to five companies including Woolston Car Supermarket in Southampton.

It comes after a Daily Echo investigation found that scores of people had paid thousands of pounds to buy used cars from him, tried to return them and were never refunded.

At Southampton Crown Court the 32-year old admitted a string of offences under each of the five charges which took place over a three-year period from July 2013 to March 2016.

These include advertising vehicles on Ebay or in Autotrader with fake mileages and reducing the mileage on vehicle odometers.

He also admitted using forged documents and failing to provide correct information about the roadworthiness of vehicles.

When customers did buy cars he failed to deliver them, and also failed to refund cash on returned vehicles.

Rudgley also told customers that the car they were buying had a valid warranty when it didn’t.

The charges each relate to separate times during a three-year period when Rudgley worked for five different company names:

  • Hampshire Vehicle Sales Limited (T/A Woolston Car Supermarket) 
  • Woolston Car Supermarket Limited 
  • Service 4 Life Limited
  • Deltaflag Limited
  • Swift Bird Ltd

In a 30-minute hearing, Rudgley, of Coopers Close, West End, was joined by co-defendants Richard Burbage, Darryl Warren and Ryan Overton.

Burbage, from Curdridge Lane, Curdridge, wore a dark blue suit and yellow tie, to deny all five charges, the same as those admitted by Rudgley.

Overton, 22, from St Peter’s Close, Curdridge, pleaded not guilty to two charges taking place between July 1, 2013, and September 16, 2013, at Hampshire Vehicle Sales Limited (T/A Woolston Car Supermarket) and September 17, 2013, and December 31, 2013, at Woolston Car Supermarket Limited.

Warren, 34, from Lower Derby Road, Portsmouth, pleaded not guilty to one charge between October 27, 2014, and July 4, 2015, at Deltaflag Ltd.

All four were released pending a pre-trial hearing on Friday, October 14, with a trial due in the spring of next year.

Burbage must report to his nearest police station three times a week .

Rudgley was ordered to comply with the probation service in order to provide a pre-sentence report before he is sentenced at the conclusion of a trial.

Ordering all four defendants to stand up, the judge Recorder Alistair Malcolm QC told them when they would next appear in court.

Speaking to Rudgley he said: “The fact that I’m putting the case back for a pre-sentence report is no indication that you won’t eventually get a prison sentence.”