A CAR salesman has been jailed for 18 months for stealing almost £70,000 from a North-East dealership after owning up even though no one suspected his crimes.

Paul John Toft took money from cash sales and covered up his con by setting up finance on fictitious cars.

The thefts went unspotted, even after the accounts of Sherwoods, in Darlington, were checked and when its VAT was examined.

But Toft, 49, became so guilty about his dishonesty he handed himself in to police days after appearing as a prosecution witness in an unrelated fraud trial.

Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday how Toft might have got away with the fraud had his conscience not been pricked by the other court case in Germany.

Judge George Moorhouse told him he deserved credit for handing himself in, for co-operating with the police and for pleading guilty at the first opportunity.

But he said: "You know yourself, that when you are in a position of trust, as you were, and you go and steal a large sum of money, you are committing a very serious offence and custody is inevitable."

Toft, of Weare Grove, Stockton, admitted stealing £38,875 over two years and authorising money transfers to a bank account in his name to a value of £30,400.

His barrister, Kristian Mills, told the judge: "Mr Toft knows, and he knew when he went to the police station, notwithstanding his previous good character, that these are offences which cross the custody threshold.

"The pre-sentence report deals with how it is that a good man with a reasonably good job and a nice family ends up in a situation where he is stealing significant quantities of money from his employer.

"It started with him borrowing £150 cash and spiralled out of control with him falsifying documents to try to cover up what he had done. This is a man who has brought shame upon himself and his family, and that is something he will have to live with for the rest of his life.

"Before Mr Toft walked into that police station, nobody, apart from himself, had any idea that these offences had been committed.

"The business had been audited by accountants and by the VAT man and no one had discovered these crimes.

"It is reasonable to suppose that Mr Toft could have taken this guilty secret with him to the grave, should he have chosen to.

"The motivation for attending the police station was firstly that he could no longer live with himself, and he could not look himself in the mirror knowing what he had done.

"Immediately preceding him handing himself in, he had been in Germany giving evidence against someone who was charged with an offence of fraud, and he tells me that he sat in court and thought to himself 'what a hypocrite I am. When I get back to England, I'm going to confess to what I've done'."

Toft had worked for Sherwoods (Darlington ) Limited, in Chesnut Street, for ten years.