A Suffolk mobility furniture company director that swindled disabled and elderly customer out of thousands of pounds will have to sell his £400,000 Felixstowe home to repay the victims of his fraud.

Ipswich Crown Court heard how David Waters of Manwick Road, Felixstowe, has been jailed for 32 months in December 2019 after he and his company Anchor Mobility Limited were convicted of a string of unfair trading offences.

The 73-year-old appeared under the Proceeds of Crime Act where Judge Emma Peters heard Waters' £400,000 home will have to be sold to meet a confiscation order.

She directed that if the order was agreed the matter would be dealt with on December 6 but if it's not, a two-week contested hearing will take place in October next year.

An investigation by Suffolk Trading Standards officers found more than 20 customers paid Waters, who was sole director of Anchor Mobility Ltd, for furniture including reclining chairs, sofas and beds but they never received the goods.

Waters denied fraudulent trading by taking payment without delivering goods, at a trial in in 2019 where he was found guilty of pressurising customers to make purchases, and failing to issue refunds between October 2016 and August 2017.

Waters and Anchor Mobility also denied engaging in an unfair commercial practice which contravened requirements of professional diligence between October 2016 and August 2017.

The company and Waters also denied 13 offences of being engaged in misleading commercial practices by failing to fulfil representations that furniture would be delivered to customers within an agreed time period.

Waters was made the subject of a criminal behaviour order and banned from being a company director for 10 years, while Anchor Mobility was fined £1,000 for each charge of unfair commercial practice.