A crooked car dealer who was jailed for a series of sophisticated scams on island drivers is appealing his sentence of nine years and 10 months.

Glenn Barry Cooper, 53, falsely applied for personal loans, failed to hand over cash from car sales and took out stocking loans on vehicles he sold on or never owned.

His offences spanned a 22 month-period between November 2017 and September 2019.

The total cost of his offending was put at over £860,000.

Cooper was living in Majestic Close in Onchan at the time but was living in Windermere when he was arrested at the end of 2022, having fled the island.

He pleaded guilty to 21 counts of fraud and theft.

In January he was jailed for a total of nine years and 10 months but has now lodged an appeal against his sentence, which will be heard on April 26.

The Court of General Gaol Delivery was told he took money for cars that were not handed over and lied about having £4m in assets in order to secure personal loans of £130,000.

The offences were committed while Cooper was trading with his now defunct company GBM Automotive Limited.

He used GBM to obtain fraudulent loans against a number of vehicles and steal the sale proceeds of the third-party vehicle owners they were selling for.

Cooper’s crimes came to light when a loan firm was contacted by a company in the UK who was in possession of car that was subject to one of the defendant’s fraudulent loans.

Among the victims of Cooper’s cruel scams was the mum of a child with mobility issues who had asked him to sell her car.

However, after giving him the keys in September 2019, she never heard from him again, a situation which sent her into a financial ‘downward spiral’.

Sentencing him to a period of nine years and 10 months behind bars, Deemster Graeme Cook said the scale of Cooper’s offences were ‘outrageous’.

The Deemster also told the court Cooper had used the money he made to fund his lifestyle.