Reg Vardy’s Rossleigh Jaguar dealership, which was sold to Pendragon three years ago, has been found guilty for falsely claiming a car had been properly assessed for passing an MOT.

The former north-east car dealership was fined for making a false statement to Ainslie Scott, claiming her car was examined by someone with “knowledge, training and expertise” to assess if it would pass the MOT test on June 15, 2006.

Scott claimed she believed Rossleigh would carry out an MoT on her car, despite the fact, which was unknown to her, the garage was not a testing centre.

Scott said: “I only found out recently they didn’t do tests. I thought they did because of the size of the garage and the fact that it was the main dealer of Jaguars.”

She told Aberdeen Sheriff Court she received a phone call from the garage receptionist who said that her Jaguar had failed the test and the repair cost would be £2,128. She then decided to take her car to another garage for a second opinion, and was given a small list of items to repair which would cost only around £200.

The court also heard from Hugh Findlay, the mechanic who serviced Scott’s car.

He told the court that although he had previously been an MOT tester in the 1970s, he had not been asked to carry out an MOT and he only serviced the car and put his findings in a report.

The sheriff found the company guilty and ordered it to pay a fine of £500.