GUILTY OF FRAUD
Jury convicts car dealer on 13 counts of defrauding customers but is still out on another 12 charges:
A CAR dealer has been found guilty of defrauding customers.
Gwyn Meirion Roberts had denied taking cash and partexchange vehicles for highend cars that were never delivered and was on trial at Caernarfon Crown Court.
The 50-year-old, of Dolgoed, Llandudno Junction, had insisted he intended to honour all deals and deliver all the vehicles. But the jury delivered guilty verdicts on 13 of the 25 charges at Caernarfon Crown Court on Monday.
The jury foreman, answering the court clerk’s questions, said they had yet to decide on a further 12 charges.
Roberts stood with his head bowed as the verdicts were announced.
Judge Huw Rees adjourned the hearing until yesterday, with the jury due to resume their deliberations on the remaining charges as the Mail went to press.
During the trial, the prosecution alleged Roberts set up deals that were “too good to be true” in order to secure money from customers to prop up his ailing Menai Vehicle Solutions business.
Prosecuting barrister Matthew Corbett Jones said Roberts was “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and had suggested it was not a matter of if but when the company failed.
In continuing to trade, the prosecutor claimed, he was putting customers at risk of loss.
The company went into voluntary liquidation on October 2, 2015.
At the time of the collapse, creditors were owed £1,308,879 and 50 customers were awaiting delivery of vehicles.
When asked by defence counsel John Philpotts if he had knowingly defrauded any of his customers, Roberts had said “not at all”.