A CAR dealer accused of “ripping off” a restaurant owner has been jailed for three years.

Darren Palmer, 43, defrauded Yat Kueng Chan, who ran the Rendlesham Wok Company out of �20,000 after persuading him to invest in his car business, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Jailing Palmer Judge John Holt said instead of splitting any profits with Mr Chan, Palmer had kept all the money and could only repay �101.75 as he had no assets.

Judge Holt said Mr Chan’s wife had described the impact of what Palmer had done as “putting their lives in misery”.

Palmer, of Knights Road, Rendlesham, had denied five offences of fraud by false representation but was found guilty by a jury at Ipswich Crown Court after a trial in April.

Palmer’s convictions placed him in breach of a 12 month suspended prison sentence imposed in 2010 after he admitted seven offences of fraud.

At a sentencing hearing yesterday Judge Holt ordered Palmer to serve the 12 month suspended sentence with two years to run consecutively for the current offences.

During Palmer’s trial the court heard he had persuaded Mr Chan to invest in a venture in which Palmer would buy cars and sell them on, with the men splitting the profits.

Palmer denied ripping off MrChan and denied he had regarded him as an easy target.

He accepted he owed Mr Chan money but said he had not paid him back because his bail conditions banned him from contacting him.

He claimed he and Mr Chan had a rolling agreement and he would have paid him when he had sold cars bought under their agreement.

Nicola May for Palmer said that until 2008 Palmer had run a respectable business.

She said he hadn’t started the enterprise with Mr Chan with a view to it being fraudulent. “He encountered financial problems,” Miss May said.