Berkshire Car trader filmed breaking UK ban
Published November 11th, 2006
A car trader banned from pretending to be a private seller has been caught on camera breaking his court order.
Ian Graves, from Berkshire, became the first trader in the UK to be given the ban when trading standards bosses took action to stop his on-the-street sales.
But BBC South’s Inside Out programme secretly filmed Mr Graves still passing himself off as a private owner to sell another car from the roadside.
Mr Graves, of Circuit Lane, Southcote, Reading, declined to be interviewed.
It was not just a one-off - sometimes it was [like] a garage forecourt
Wokingham Road resident
The BBC is to pass its evidence onto the local trading standards department.
If Mr Graves is found guilty of breaching the injunction, he could face a jail sentence for contempt of court.
By masquerading as a private owner, Mr Graves was depriving buyers of their consumer rights, which do not apply to private sales.
Reading Borough Council first took legal action against him after finding scores of his cars left for sale on roads across the town over a two-year period.
It said the problem of traders leaving cars for sale on the roadside was “endemic” in Reading, particularly on the Wokingham Road.
Residents and businesses campaigned to get the area cleared of vehicles and inundated the council with complaints.
Mr Howarth said tracking down the owners of the cars was complicated
“It seemed unfair. We pay a higher rate here and it sort of belittled the place,” said one elderly resident.
Another neighbour said: “It was not just a one-off - sometimes it was [like] a garage forecourt. Occasionally we got people knocking on the door and asking us if they were our cars for sale.”
Dentist Dr Vincent Greenham added: “It’s a very busy road. It’s the main road to the motorway and eventually we got to the stage where it was difficult for our patients to find somewhere to park.”
Forty-four of Mr Graves’ vehicles were removed from the streets by the council.
So many were registered under false names that the highways department dubbed him “Mr Alias”.
Councillor John Howarth, the council’s transport boss, said of the difficulties the authority faced in tacking him down: “The council has a problem in dealing with the cars, taking them away, locating them and that’s made a lot more difficult when you are dealing with a number of different names, a number of fictitious addresses and various, different phone numbers that do not exist.”
Eventually, the council proved at Reading County Court in July that Mr Graves was a trader and won a permanent UK-wide injunction banning him from pretending otherwise.
But Inside Out found he was still advertising cars in the small ads, using a range of mobile phone numbers and false names.
An undercover reporter bought an Audi 80 from Mr Graves, who did not declare he was a trader and had simply left the car parked on a residential street.
The car, which one qualified mechanic described as “worthless”, failed its MOT on 17 points and was later scrapped.
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