TWO men who took part in a "highly sophisticated" and "devious" fraud that netted them more than £1million in top of the range cars won cuts in their sentences on Monday.

Atul Karia, 35, of Bywaters in Croxley Green, and Ronald Tuckey, 33, from Chelmsford, were given seven and a half years and five years in prison respectively.

The sentences were given out in August 2001 after Karia pleaded guilty to obtaining property by deception, conspiracy to defraud and absconding from bail, and Tuckey was convicted of conspiracy to defraud.

However, on Monday, Mr Justice Silber, who was sitting at London's Court of Appeal with Lord Justice Dyson and Judge Peter Beaumont QC, ruled the sentences "manifestly excessive".

The judge said that Tuckey was a family man of good character who had lost custody of his two children because of his conviction and had given up a successful career as a car salesman to join the gang.

He added that although Karia was the "ringleader" in the plot, the totality of his sentence was too high.

Mr Justice Silber said: "Accordingly we reduce Karia's sentence to six and a half years while Tuckey's will be reduced to four."

The judge told the court how the fraud began in 1998 when Karia and four other men began buying expensive cars, including BMWs and Mercedes on finance schemes.

But the names and addresses with which they purchased the cars were fake and more than 30 vehicles valued at more than £1million were sold on to third parties.

The judge said few of the cars were recovered and the finance companies were forced to write off the bad debts.

He added that Tuckey, who played a "limited role", was a car salesman at one of the showrooms targeted but soon left to pursue a more criminal line of work.

When police smashed the ring, Karia was charged and released on bail, but committed another fraud involving a vehicle.

This, said Mr Justice Silber, was an aggravating feature of his crime, as was absconding on bail.

Karia had apologised to the judge at Chelmsford Crown Court for his actions, claiming he was scared of going to prison after being labelled a police informer by his associates.

July 16, 2002 16:00