Ref. 25115-20HAULAGE company boss John Keeping was detained in court for a morning in the latest installment of the saga surrounding the collapse of his business through an employee's fraud.

Mr Keeping was ordered by Swindon Magistrates to spend the morning sitting in number two court yesterday after he explained that he was unable to pay a £485 fine and court costs for an overloaded lorry, because his company had been forced to close in the wake of the £164,000 fraud perpetrated by Margaret Cross.

The bench reduced the amount to a nominal sum of £50 and £25 costs, which he was still unable to pay, so he was ordered to stay in lieu of payment.

After the magistrates adjourned for lunch Mr Keeping told the Adver how his situation was so desperate that he faced losing his house in Swindon Road, Stratton, at the end of the month, because he couldn't keep up the interest payments on a remortgage he took out to keep the company afloat before the deception by Cross was discovered.

He said he frequently had to appear in the Royal Courts of Justice in London to try to prevent the company from being completely wound up as creditors launched legal actions to get their money.

But he is lobbying the Government through North Swindon MP Michael Wills to force the banks through which fraudulent cheques were paid to give the money back so he can pay the creditors.

He has also gone to the Financial Services Authority and the banking ombudsman.

But he said he already owed more than £40,000 in legal fees to his solicitors and was looking at more than £100,000 to take the banks to court.

"I have just got to try to keep pursuing it, keep my head together and stay alive."

The constant struggle has driven him to two suicide attempts and now he is undergoing counselling.

"They are chucking so much at me. It is as if I defrauded the creditors," he said.

Cross was given a two-year prison sentence last year after admitting 23 counts of false accounting and obtaining money by deception, with another 110 counts taken into consideration.

She served four months and moved to Scunthorpe. When Mr Keeping went to her house to ask for his money back he received a letter from her solicitors warning him not to return or she could take legal action against him.

As a result of the fraud he had been unable to pay creditors, VAT and the Inland Revenue. His business was eventually forced to close its operation with the loss of 27 jobs.

Now Mr Keeping, 61, is unemployed and living on £102 a week pension credit.

Tina Clarke