Luscombe Motors has asked customers to nominate a charity recipient of a £500 donation after the sum was handed to the car retailer by a rival trader as compensation for the ‘theft’ of images from its website.

The Leeds-based Suzuki GB, Mitsubishi Motors in the UK and MG Motor UK retailer proposed the cash donation in a bid to avoid costly and time-consuming legal proceedings after discovering that “another Suzuki dealer had 'borrowed/taken/stolen' over 350 images of our new cars”.

Managing director, Robin Luscombe, said that he is looking to customers to find a West Yorkshire charity to hand the funds to.

In a post to the group’s Facebook followers, Luscombe said: “Admittedly, you might not think that's such a big deal, but when you consider the investment needed to produce these photos: full-time photographer; re-developing a dedicated photography area; high-end camera equipment; valeting department to ensure cars look their best; plus hundreds of man-hours, it soon adds up.

“Let's assume £10 per photo, and it becomes quite apparent why someone may want to save themselves the trouble and just nick ours.

“So, what do we do? Wanting to avoid all the stresses and hassles of legal proceedings, we thought of a better idea. We proposed they make a £500 donation to a West Yorkshire based charity to which they sensibly accepted.”

Luscombe is asking his customers to tag a deserving charity into a Facebook comment giving reasons for why their choice of charity is the most deserving.

He added: “Share the post far and wide - You never know, the dealer in question may just see it himself and put his hand a bit further into his pocket to make something even better come out of laziness and a lack of respect.”