A car dealer who defrauded a finance company by pretending he'd sold a car when he'd simply pocketed the money has won the right to appeal against his sentence.
A jury had already found him guilty after he sold another dealer's car to obtain over $20,000 from a finance company while he lumped a former customer with the repayments.
He'd never sold the car though, it remained on the lot until it was repossessed and sold for a quarter of what it was worth.
Hamil Dave forged an associate's signature to obtain the finance for the Toyota Estima and $20,000 was paid to his company's bank account the same day. The Auckland car salesman was the only one with access to that account.