A used car dealer has been jailed after scamming buyers using techniques including covering dashboard warning lights with pieces of towel.

The court heard that one of his more 'innovative' techniques to fool buyers included cutting pieces of cloth out and sticking them over warning lights; when Trading Standards searched his own car, they found a towel with holes cut into it.

Kevin Blaber of Plymouth also forged service documents from fictitious garages and "had a history if dishonesty going back 30 years," Plymouth Crown Court was told.

Pleading guilty to 12 charges in total, the dealer was sentenced to ten months in jail.

Blaber was also found to have used Vauxhall's griffin logo without permission, and over the last three decades had included a made-up Vauxhall garage in his compendium of non-existent dealerships.