A Suffolk based letting agent who left customers £80,000 out of pocket when his business closed has no money to repay them, a court has heard.

Francis Smart, who was the proprietor of Smart Residential Letting Agents, which was based in Newmarket, admitted two offences of fraud by abuse of position by retaining rent and deposits and was jailed for 34 months last summer.

On Thursday at Ipswich Crown Court, Andrew Howarth told a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime act that Smart, who is still serving his prison sentence, was “a man of straw” with no available assets.

He withdrew an application for a confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime act but applied for a contribution to the £87,000 cost of the fraud investigation.

Judge Emma Peters refused the application for costs on the basis that Smart is in prison and has no assets or income but banned him from being a company director for eight years.

Officers from Suffolk Trading Standards, along with the National Trading Standards Tri Regional Investigations Team, began investigating 46-year-old Smart, of Dowding Avenue, Cambridge, and his company in autumn of 2018.

It followed numerous complaints from landlords and tenants who were unable to make contact with the company after its premises at 5B Wellington Street, Newmarket, closed in July 2018, leaving them out of pocket and without answers.

A number of people who had got Smart to act as the letting agent for their properties and to collect rent from tenants were spoken to and there was evidence of rent being withheld in relation to 24 properties amounting to £33,587.

It was also discovered that Smart had pocketed deposits from tenants totalling £43,579 in relation to 38 properties which should have been paid into a deposit protection scheme.