YORKSHIRE dealer group DC Cook was fined £17,000 after it admitted selling 'clocked' cars. Two of the group's Barnsley dealerships were prosecuted by Trading Standards at York Crown Court after selling cars whose odometers were subsequently found to have been tampered with.

Branch managers Philip Ainsworth and Christopher Whiteley were both given three- year conditional discharges after admitting they had not verified the mileages when they bought the cars and failed to attach disclaimer stickers to the speedometers.

In one case, a Vauxhall Cavalier was sold with 38,000 miles on the clock, but checks revealed it had previously been sold at auction with a reading of 96,146 miles. The offences took place between February and June 1993 and DC Cook's defence lawyer said that although there was no suggestion that the company itself had been involved in clocking, it had since spent £250,000 putting things right.