AN ex-company director from Herefordshire who defrauded creditors to the tune of £2million has been ordered to pay £181,750 by a court following a prosecution by the Department of Trade and Industry.

Christopher Trietline, 58, of Vowchurch Court, Vowchurch, who is already serving a five-year prison sentence, was ordered to pay the confiscation order within 15 months by Maidstone Crown Court or serve an extra period of 30 months imprisonment.

Mr Trietline was jailed in February 2002, along with two other company directors, for ruining once-reputable family haulage businesses - Deadman Transport Ltd, Deadman Transport (Midlands) Ltd and Deadman Transport and Groupage Ltd.

The directors left behind a litany of bounced cheques, broken promises, forged documents and faked invoices to generate cash and present a false picture of the state of the businesses.

Despite being effectively insolvent, the companies continued to operate throughout the Midlands and Kent, and resulted in losses to creditors approaching £2 million when the companies finally ceased trading.

After several hearings at Canterbury Crown Court, Judge Adele Williams ruled that Mr Trietline had personally benefited from the charges in the sum of £730,100.

She described Mr Trietline as 'a dishonest, manipulative, and skilful fraudster hiding behind a veneer of respectability'.

During the confiscation hearings, the court heard evidence for Mr Trietline that the value of horses owned by his partnership, Wainbody Estates, had fallen from in excess of £400,000 to £4,400 in two years.

The judge said that this was not credible and she found that there were hidden assets in the form of horses or their proceeds in the sum of £150,000.