The owner of a high-value sports car dealership has been jailed for fraud.
John Patrick Hawkins, 66, was owner and director of Specialist Cars of Malton Ltd (SCML), and well-known in the business of trading expensive vehicles – Porsches in particular.
He’s now starting a five year jail sentence after his business collapsed into liquidation and North Yorkshire Police uncovered his fraudulent efforts to keep it afloat.
Some of the customers deceived by Hawkins had known him for years and became friends, meeting for dinner and staying over at his house.
In spite of that, Hawkins took advantage of them, leaving them £1.5 million out of pocket.
SCML accounts analysed by North Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit showed trade had begun to slow down, with money received from customers doing no more than paying off an overdraft which was increasing year-on-year.
Bradford Crown Court heard that Hawkins sought to keep the business going by raising money in several different ways – all of them dishonest.
He would keep money he had received from selling vehicles given to him to sell on a ‘sale or return’ basis.
He sold vehicles being stored at SCML without the owners’ knowledge or agreement. He raised money by selling shares in vehicles he did not own.
He obtained large sums of money advanced to him under finance agreements he was not entitled to enter into, and when confronted by customers wanting their money, he gave personal guarantees and assigned ownership of other vehicles he did not own as security.
When SCML was placed into liquidation in February 2020, many customers had to take legal action to recover their interest in the vehicles that had passed through Hawkins’ hands.
Some never received anything at all, including people who were relying on the sale of vehicles as part of their retirement plan.
In one instance, a man whom Hawkins called one of his closest friends had to sell his belongings to avoid losing his house, having been persuaded to invest a substantial sum of money he never saw again.
Hawkins was interviewed by North Yorkshire Police in August 2020. He provided a prepared statement saying that he had acted honestly throughout and had co-operated fully with the administrators – after which he answered “no comment” to investigators’ questions.
But in court, Hawkins, of Coneysthorpe, Malton, pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading from late 2018 onwards, accepting that the total loss to those he deceived was £1.5 million.
On 9 January 2026, he was sentenced to five years and three months in prison, and issued with a ten-year Directors Disqualification Order.
A further hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act is due to follow later this year for the confiscation of available assets.
North Yorkshire Police fraud investigator Constable Emma Harris said: “In order to maintain the façade of a successful business, Hawkins lied to customers time and time again, and falsified documents to give credence to those lies.
“The financial and emotional impact on his victims has been nothing short of devastating, and it is right that he now faces a lengthy prison sentence.”
