A “THOROUGHLY dishonest” car salesman who syphoned off more than £32,000 from his employers has been jailed.

Swansea Crown Court heard that Ceri Lewis was convicted in 2012 of five offences including of two of theft by an employee and two charges of making false representations.

But despite this, Lewis was hired as a car salesman at Penybanc Car Sales in Ammanford in 2014. Richard Safadi, the owner of the company, knew Lewis as he had supplied scrap car parts to another of Safadi’s businesses.

Mr Safadi hired Lewis as he was “considered to be a good salesperson” and “had changed his ways”, prosecutor Ryan Bowen said.

However, shortly after being hired, Lewis stole between £300 and £400 from the business, Mr Bowen said.

When Mr Safadi challenged him, Lewis “cried and begged” and told his boss he would pay the money back.

“Richard Safadi gave him another chance,” Mr Bowen said.

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As the company grew, Lewis was given more responsibilities – including being entrusted to carry out banking transactions using the business account. However, Mr Safadi then began receiving calls from creditors saying they hadn’t been paid.

He initially paid the money, believing it to have been an error, but after a VAT review in June 2022, Lewis’ offending was uncovered.

An accountant found Mrs Safadi’s wage hadn’t been paid “for a number of months”. Lewis had edited the payment to send it to his own account, but had kept the reference the same and had removed his own details from the business’ recent payees.

Further examination found he had been syphoning off money from the business since June 2019, and had stolen a total of £32,798.79.

Mr Safadi confronted Lewis, who admitted taking the money and promised to repay it.

In a message to Mrs Safadi, Lewis said: ‘I’m so sorry. It’s not an excuse but I’ve been in a bad place.’

The court heard that Lewis had agreed to pay the money back at £1,000 per month, and had said his parents would be guarantors.

Lewis had repaid £21,000, but when he was unable to keep paying the money back, Mr Safadi went to see the defendant’s parents, who did not know anything about what had happened. As a result, Mr Safadi went to the police.

Lewis, of Quarry Road in the Treboeth area of Swansea, was interviewed by the police in October last year, where he admitted an offence of fraud by false representation.

Mr Bowen said 49-year-old Lewis had used the money to “support a lavish lifestyle”.

Kate Williams, in mitigation, said the offence represented a “breach of trust” but that it didn’t appear to have had a “significant financial effect on the business”.

“He has made attempts to pay this back,” she said.

Ms Williams said Lewis “wishes to repay the amount to Mr Safadi”, and that he accepted he had put himself in this position.

Sentencing Lewis, Judge Paul Thomas KC said: “In breach of the significant trust placed in you by your employers, you systematically and cynically diverted money which should have gone to a director in to your own account.

“This wasn’t a spur of the moment offence. It was calculated, it was persistent, and it was thoroughly dishonest.”

Judge Thomas said that the offending was made “even more disgraceful” due to the fact that Lewis being hired despite his boss knowing about his previous conviction.

“You are, in short, a thoroughly dishonest man,” he said.

Lewis was sentenced to 20 months in prison.