Seamus Montgomery, arrested in Essex back in 2010 for supplying fake British MoT certificates from his home in Alvor, Algarve, has been sentenced to a suspended sentence in a case that has been 'a great burden' on him and his wife.
Montgomery, now 70, admitted the charge of supplying false MoT certificates in a scam that ran for five years of more. He was in court with his wife Paula and he was given legal aid despite the huge sums raised by his criminal activities.
It was not revalent to the case in the UK whether any unsafe British registered vehicles with fake MoTs were involved in, or even caused crashes on Portugals' roads.
Mrs Montgomery was cleared of all charges but Seamus Montgomery pleaded guilty and was sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court to a two year suspended sentence.
The couple from Tollesbury in Essex owned a townhouse in the Algarve from where Montgomery ran his scam, advertising UK MoTs with no questions asked at £200 a go in the classified ads section of well known local English language newspapers.
It is thought that he sold at least 1,000 certificates each year the scam was running. Over five years this would have yielded a cool £1 million.
When the fraud came to light the entire UK certificate issuing system was changed and documents are now laser-printed and registered on a computer database.
Prosecutor Raj Joshi told the court that Montgomery was running a sophisticated scam, ‘It was apparent from evidence recovered that this large-scale operation had gone back to 2005," said Joshi. ‘It caused considerable harm and undermined confidence in the system for MoTs.’
Christopher Paxton, defending, said the Montgomerys now live in a caravan park in Penzance in Cornwall and had suffered as a result of the case and it had been a "great burden’ on them."
"In the community they lived in they have lost some friends as a result of the allegations,’ he said. ‘The fall from grace has been profound.’
Recorder John Caudle said "He could have owned up much earlier, it is regrettable to have a man aged 70 here who has succumbed to greed."
The Daily Mail was commended in court for the tenacity of one of its reporters without whom the fraud may be been undetected for many more years.
