Red fuel rogue avoids jail
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• Notorious haulier and farmer Stanley Fernyhough has been given an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for evading £100,000 worth of fuel duty.
Bolton Crown Court heard that Fernyhough, based in Swythamley, near Macclesfield, evaded the duty between November 1996 and July 1999.
The prosecution alleged that when police stopped one of his vehicles near Leigh in July 1999 they found rebated red diesel in the fuel tank. Fernyhough said the driver told him he had put red diesel in the tank without his knowledge. But when four other vehicles were stopped later that month—including one driven by Fernyhough—they were also found to be running on red diesel.
This is not the first time that Fernyhough has been in trouble. In September 1989 he was given a 15-month prison sentence at Knutsford Crown Court for the theft of grain and for tachograph offences. And last year he was given a conditional discharge for three years after admitting fraudulent use of vehicle registration plates and tacho falsification. The court heard that Fernyhough's business fell on hard times in 1906 and he had difficulty paying vehicle excise duty and coping with fuel price increases.
Jane Wallbanks, defending, said: "He is not somebody who was trying to bleed the state for personal gain; he tried to keep his business going for the sake of 54 employees."
She added that during the 20 years he had been in business, Fernyhough would have paid up to E8m in fuel duty, suggesting that this put the £100,000 evasion into perspective.
The 54-year-old was made bankrupt in January and his health had deteriorated in the two-year wait to come to court, Wallbanks added, concluding that he would never be able to start up in business again.