TWO cousins who fiddled their company books to cheat the taxman out of £220,000 were spared jail yesterday (Friday).

Miriam Simcock, 64, and Gordon Matchett, 71, both of Wilton Road, Burcombe, ran three engineering firms - Freepower, Freepower Europe and TTL Dynamics.

The court heard they faked invoices to claim inflated VAT repayments between January 2011 and December 2012.

They also duplicated claims and fiddled VAT records.

Company director Simcock, who used a number of aliases including her sister’s name, admitted responsibility for the full amount.

IT expert and bookkeeper Matchett played a lesser role, accepting responsibility for around £100,000.

Suspicious VAT claims sparked an HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) investigation and the pair were arrested in January 2013.

Customs officers seized computers and files from the defendants’ home.

Simcock and Matchett tried to deny any wrongdoing, but both changed their pleas to guilty on the first day of their trial.

On Friday, Judge Barnett sentenced Simcock to two years in prison, suspended for two years, for conspiracy to cheat the public revenue.

Matchett was given a one-year jail term, also suspended for two years, for his part in the conspiracy.

Both were disqualified from running businesses for five years.

Freepower specialised in building engines that turned waste heat into electricity.

The court heard shareholders had had high hopes for the firm and had backed it with £6million of investment.

But it ran out of cash developing more powerful engines and went into administration.

Prosecuting, David Bartlett said: “It all went wrong and that’s when the fraud started.”

HMRC will seek to recover the proceeds of the crime.

Judge Barnett said: "What the two of you did over an appreciable period of time was submit various returns for VAT which were patently wrong and dishonest.”

The judge later described the amount stolen as "colossal", but said the crimes showed “streaks of amateurism”.

He said: "Both of you fell to temptation for various reasons to behave in this thoroughly dishonest way."

Representing Simcock, Samuel Stein said his client was very ill and had endured a long-term abusive relationship.

Defending Matchett, Christopher Kerr said his client’s role was far more limited than Simcock’s and he had not understood the full extent of the fraud.