A salesman who was fired posed as his former employers to order nearly £300,000 of cars through BCA after getting drunk.

Paul Donkin was asked to leave Durham Hire and Sales after just two months of working for the firm, the Sunderland Echo reports.

In a drunken rage, he used the company’s log-in details to buy 24 cars from an online trade auction run by British Car Auctions.

Staff at the BCA site became suspicious with the large order and contacted the company in Langley Moor, Durham.

Police traced the orders to 41-year-old Donkin, who has pleaded guilty at Sunderland Magistrates’ Court to two charges of committing fraud by false representation and two of misusing a computer to gain access to unauthorised data.

Lee Poppett, prosecuting, said Donkin was given the passwords when he worked for the firm between June and August last year. He then accessed the British Car Auctions website from his home address and purchased 21 motor vehicles within 15 minutes.

On a second occasion he logged in again and purchased a further three vehicles.

The combined total of all the vehicles was £294,800, said the prosecution.

Michael Robinson, defending, said Donkin, of Mount Pleasant, committed the fraud in a “moment of madness” after a weekend in a drunken stupor and he used information that he had with the purposes of causing the company disruption.

Magistrates asked for the case to be adjourned until June 18 for the probation service to prepare a report about him recommending a sentence – taking in all available options, including a jail term.