A FRAUDSTER who made off with more than £100,000 of hire company vehicles and machinery across Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset has been jailed for two years.

Andrew John O’Donnell, 31, admitted committing 13 charges of fraud against nine separate businesses in September 2009, when he appeared before Dorchester Crown Court.

Robin Leach, prosecuting, said on each occasion O’Donnell, of Mill Close, Frome, agreed to return the vehicles within a specific date but then failed to do so.

Timothy Bradbury, mitigating, said the fraud occurred after O’Donnell borrowed £38,000 from Polish businessmen to establish a business and they pursued him and threatened his wife with violence.

He said: “The unscrupulous loan sharks, to whom he was in debt, placed pressure on him to repay or to do as they say to discharge his debt.

“He committed offences and acquired vehicles, which were taken to Eastern Europe, converted and sold.”