Two car dealers have been convicted of misleading customers after selling on vehicles which had been written off in crashes.

One received a four-month prison sentence, with the judge warning that people in the crashed car could potentially have been killed – along with other road users.

The prosecutions were brought by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC).

Brian Healy, the owner of Lucan Auto Sales, and Andrius Miliauskas, who worked at the dealership, were convicted of misleading consumers about the history of second-hand cars. Miliauskas pleaded guilty to six offences, while Healy pleaded guilty to four charges.

The CCPC said that under consumer protection law, it is an offence for traders to give false, misleading or deceptive information about the history of a car.

In a ruling at Dublin District Court yesterday morning, Judge Anthony Halpin sentenced Miliauskas to four months in prison. Healy was fined €1,500 and ordered to pay costs of €3,567 to the CCPC and €1,994 in compensation to a consumer.

The charges concerned a 161 Ford Focus which was crashed in March 2023, classed as a write-off and sold as salvage. It then went to Lucan Auto Sales, which sold it to a customer in June 2023 for €11,500. The dealers gave the buyer misleading information regarding the car’s crash history.

The charges also related to a 142 Audi A5 which was crashed and written off in the UK in 2017. It was then sold by Lucan Auto Sales for €14,000 in June 2024 without disclosing its crash history.

When the customer subsequently discovered it had been involved in a collision and returned the car to the dealer, it was almost immediately readvertised, again without disclosing its crash history. Both customers reported their experience to the CCPC, which then opened an investigation.

Judge Halpin said that the dealers had ‘completely deceived’ the two people. He cautioned that if one of the previously written-off cars were to break down on the road, ‘not only could the people in that car be killed, but other people could be killed as a consequence of that’.

‘To deceive a buyer in that regard is outrageous,’ he said.

The CCPC said in a statement following the case that it had prosecuted Healy following an investigation which established that he had knowingly overseen the sale of vehicles to consumers who had been provided with misleading information about their history.

It said that Miliauskas was prosecuted following a CCPC investigation which established that he had sold a vehicle to a consumer and, during that transaction, also provided the buyer with misleading information about the vehicle’s history.

Miliauskas had previously been investigated by the CCPC for a similar offence, for which he was convicted. The CCPC said Miliauskas was appealing yesterday’s ruling to the Circuit Court.

Brian McHugh, chairman of the consumer watchdog, said: ‘Car traders have a legal obligation not to mislead buyers about a car’s history and condition. Misleading information can put the buyer and all other road users in danger.’