A used car salesman from Middlesex has been jailed for selling cars 'clocked' by more than 1.4m miles and forging service histories.

Saad Towpheek Raphael, who operated Steve's Autos which traded at the Brackmills Industrial Estate, Northampton, and HNT Motors (trading as the Japanese Car Centre) in London, was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment at Oxford Crown Court for supplying 'clocked' cars and the forgery of vehicle service histories.

Sentencing Judge Patrick Eccles said Raphael had duped his customers and had shown planning and determination to commit the offences.

Northamptonshire County Council began an investigation in December last year after a businessman purchased a Toyota Camry from the car auction at Brackmills which was described on the entry form as having travelled 47,000 miles and also as having a full service history.

Trading standards found the car had actually done more than 96,000 miles and stamp entries in the service history for a Toyota main dealer had been falsified.

At Raphael's flat trading standards officers also found nine main dealer service stamps and blank Honda, Nissan and Toyota service history books.

An investigation into the history of 33 cars found that more than 1.4m miles had been clocked from the cars supplied by Raphael.