A couple were sentenced today at Leeds Crown Court after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud following an investigation into a puppy farm by North Yorkshire County Council Trading Standards. David John Thomas, 46, of Armthorpe, Doncaster and Dagmar Verity Blick, 24, of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, sold puppies from Misterton Carr Farm, Misterton, Nottinghamshire, through a website called "Puppy Paradise" and from small ads in newspapers.

Thomas was sentenced to 18mths imprisonment, to run consecutively to an existing 6mths suspended sentence, and Blick was sentenced to 9mths, suspended for 18mths, and 60 hours unpaid community work. The Judge also directed that a Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation investigation be conducted in respect of Thomas.

North Yorkshire County Council Trading Standards and Regulatory Services began investigating the business after complaints were received from consumers about fake pedigree certificates, non-pedigree and sick puppies.

Following a warrant executed at the couple's business premises in May 2006, offences were found to have been committed throughout the Yorkshire and Humberside region. Some consumers paid up to £900 for puppies they believed would be pedigree and supplied with pedigree certificates.

A computer seized from the couple revealed the same pedigree certificate had been used for four separate puppies of three different breeds, including a Chihuahua, a Boxer and two Labradors. Other certificates revealed bitches had allegedly given birth to two litters within 15 days of each other. In another case, the same certificates were supplied for puppies born between November 2005 and January 2006.

North Yorkshire County Councillor Clare Wood, Executive Member for Trading Standards and Regulatory Services, said: "This was a deliberate fraud aimed at consumers who wanted pedigree dogs to show and breed from. Rogue traders must be aware that we will take strong enforcement action against them if they target North Yorkshire consumers."

In sentencing, Mr Recorder Hedworth QC said the defendants had carried out "a deliberate fraud, which cannot and will not be tolerated". He also stated the enterprise had resulted in "substantial financial benefit, which would have continued without trading standards intervention."

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