A rogue car dealer has been ordered to pay more than £6,000 after he falsely advertised and sold an unroadworthy and dangerous car.

Liaqat Ali, trading as Leeds Car House was at Dudley Magistrates’ Court on April 27 and pleaded guilty to selling the car to Dudley resident, Shamin Ali.

Shamin travelled to Leeds in October 2020 to purchase a Vauxhall Insignia, which had been advertised by Liaqat Ali as in a mint condition, with a 12-month MOT, tyres in excellent condition and at a giveaway price of £1,500.

Twenty minutes after buying the vehicle, Shamin Ali drove the vehicle on the M1 to return to the West Midlands. During this journey, warning lights appeared on the dashboard and a short time later the vehicle lost power. Shamim tried to call Liaqat a number of times throughout the evening with no response. He then approached Dudley Council’s trading standards team for help.

Trading standards instructed an independent vehicle examination, which concluded the vehicle was in a dangerous and unroadworthy condition, mainly due to a cracked suspension arm at the rear offside.

The examination also found that the vehicle had defective brakes and that the advertisement did not describe the vehicle condition accurately and was extremely misleading. It was also discovered by Dudley Trading Standards that Liaqat Ali was previously prosecuted by West Yorkshire Trading Standards in 2014, while trading as Bargain Cars.

Liaqat Ali pleaded guilty to a number of offences, including selling a dangerous and unroadworthy vehicle and providing false representations to the vehicle’s condition.

In mitigation, Liaqat Ali said that he had attempted to put the matter right. He was ordered to pay a total of £6,409.71, comprising of fines, compensation, victim surcharge and prosecution costs. Christopher King, head of environmental health and trading standards, said:

"Although this trader was not operating within our borough, we were committed to investigating and bringing Liaqat Ali to court after he’d misled a Dudley resident into buying what he thought was a car in a good condition.

"We’re really pleased with the outcome of this case and that the victim has been compensated appropriately.

"We now know that the vehicle was extremely dangerous so it’s incredibly lucky that no one was hurt. We hope this acts as a warning to others in the trade of selling cars that are not fit to be driven. We will investigate and we will prosecute."