Ref. 24800-27A BUSINESS hit by a £164,000 fraud has been forced to close.

Haulier John Keeping lays the blame for the downfall of his firm and the loss of 27 jobs at the door of former employee Margaret Cross.

Cross, 62, is serving a two-year sentence for stealing the money. She had signed false cheques and pocketed the money herself.

Mr Keeping says that he was forced to move the business to smaller premises, eventually coming to Bampton's Yard in Stratton Road.

However, a planning inquiry ruled he was not allowed to keep his lorries there and now the business has been officially wound up at a court hearing in London.

Mr Keeping, 60, said: "Because of what that woman did, people have lost their jobs, I have lost my business and I could lose my home."

Mr Keeping explained that his home in Swindon Road was at risk because he had re-mortgaged it in a bid to keep the firm afloat.

Cross was taken on in 1995, and Mr Keeping said her activities did not come to light until 2001.

She had carried out her fraud while Mr Keeping's wife, Sally, was in the final stages of the cancer that was eventually to kill her in 1997.

Mr Keeping added: "It is me who feels like a criminal now. It is me who has to go to the Royal Courts of Justice in London to have to explain why my business has collapsed.

"It has all come to a terrible end I've been on my own out here, trying to pay everything off.

"Because of what that woman did, we were unable to pay VAT and National Insurance, and were taken to court and blacklisted because of it.

"It has cost 27 people their jobs I laid the last one off in November and I could lose my home because I mortgaged it."

Mr Keeping started the firm in 1975.

His search for smaller premises following the fraud led him to Bampton's Yard in November of 2002.

However, local residents complained the noise of lorries on the site meant they were unable to sleep.

This led to the planning inquiry that culminated in his being ordered to remove his lorries by the end of last November.

Mr Keeping threw himself on the mercy of Swindon Council, appealing to the authority to find him a suitable site.

However, none could be found.

Council spokesman Gavin Calthrop said that every step possible had been taken to help the haulier.

He added: "Mr Keeping has our every sympathy."

Barrie Hudson