A struggling farmer who made a bogus insurance claim for a stolen tractor was caught when investigators found it had actually been repossessed.
Luke Morley filed a claim for £26,500 plus VAT for the John Deere tractor which he claimed had been stolen from a field near his home in Bradworthy, near Holsworthy in Devon.
He supported his claim by inventing a fake crime report number and forging a false receipt from an agricultural machinery firm and altering a DVLC tax form which he submitted to his insurance broker.
In reality, the tractor had been repossessed for non-payment three months before Morley took out the insurance policy on it.
Morley was desperate for money to prop up the smallholding he ran in North Devon with his partner Rebecca Tucker in 2018 at a time when they were already being prosecuted by the RSPCA for failing to feed or look after horses, cattle and pigs.
They both received suspended sentences after magistrates were shown horrific photos of emaciated horses, some with open sores, and pigs left in squalid sheds with inadequate food or water, Tucker admitted eight animal welfare offences and Morley six.
He split up with Tucker after that case and tried to blame her as insurance investigators and the police unravelled his web of lies. He left farming and is now working on a building site.
Morley, aged 43, formerly of Dingworthy Cottage, Bradworthy, but now of Elliott Road, Leicester, admitted fraud and was jailed for a year, suspended for 18 months and ordered to do 180 hours unpaid community work and pay £1,180 costs by Recorder Emma Zeb at Exeter Crown Court.
The judge told him: “I have read about your dyslexia and dyspraxia and I am told you found stress more difficult to cope with, particularly financial stress, but many people suffer financial stress but do not turn to crime to solve it. You were motivated by personal gain more than through opportunism.”
Mr Ed Bailey, defending, said Morley was under enormous pressure when he committed this offence and is now thoroughly remorseful.