A woman who told customers she was able to source cut-price iPads in the run-up to Christmas has been jailed.

Kirsty Cox, from County Durham took payment for thousands of orders between March and December 2012 after claiming she could source iPads at a reduced price.

The mother-of-two told pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court and has been jailed for two years.

The 37 year old told people she had a contact who could provide her with iPads for £50 to £100 off the retail price, using her “niceness” to “deceive” customers, the court heard.

Angry customers

Police arrested Cox in December 2012 and kept her in custody for safety after angry customers gathered outside her home demanding to know what had happened to their orders. One victim cancelled her own wedding to try and pay back the people she had taken money from to give to Cox.

The court also heard how on one occasion Cox spent £1.52m on iPads from PC World and then sold them at a loss in a bid to cover her tracks. Prosecutors said the actual loss to customers was more than £1.1m.

Det Supt Neil Jones from Durham Police said: “The actual real cutting effect was for the people who had been saving the small amounts per week to buy iPads for the kids for Christmas.

“To find out the week before that your goods weren’t coming was devastating, people’s Christmases were ruined.”

For further information please visit the BBC website.

To report a fraud and receive a police crime reference number, call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or use their online fraud reporting tool.