A BENTLEY-DRIVING confidence trickster who fleeced small businesses out of £5m is too broke to pay any of it back, a court was told yesterday.

Stephen Seddon, 34, lived a champagne life with cruises on the QEII, stayed at New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel, and had a cruiser on Lake Windermere.

Trading standards officers put him behind bars after they investigated his firms, European Business Support and UK Business Grants Ltd.

Almost 6,000 companies paid them fees £250 to £350 on the promise of grants from Brussels or national and local government.

Seddon, from County Durham, served a one-year jail sentence and returned to Teesside Crown Court yesterday for a confiscation hearing.

But because he is now earning often less than £200 a week and in debt, he was ordered to pay just £496.

Seddon, of Ash Crescent, Seaham, was given a year to pay the 20 per cent of the £2,480 cost of yesterday's financial hearing.

Christine Egerton, for the Crown, told the court that they did not intend to proceed further with the case of confiscation. But she said that the cost of investigating Seddon was £28,632.

Martin Bethel QC, prosecuting, said at Teesside Crown Court in March last year, when Seddon pleaded guilty to two charges of fraudulent trading, that he used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle including his £46,000 Bentley.

Seddon was banned from being a company director for ten years.