A CITY motorcycle dealer has spoken of his frustration after spending months defending himself against an unfair trading charge which was eventually dropped.

Graeme Burford, owner of Speed Superbikes in Bonhay Road, was prosecuted by Trading Standards over the sale of a motorbike with an inaccurate mileage reading on its odometer.

He says the stressful battle to clear his name made him consider giving up running the business he founded in 2005.

"It's been a year and a half of my life in which I have spent hundreds of hours poring over a box full of paperwork," he said. "It made me ill and I was put on sleeping pills.

"I'm reading all the time that the country relies on small businesses but to me it feels like the public sector is not supporting us. If it had not been for my 10 staff I would have closed my company down. They are the only reason it didn't go belly up, so I would be letting them down if I just shut it all down."

It all started in September 2009 when Speed Superbikes sold a KTM RC8 motorbike to a customer from Cornwall for £8,300.

The buyer subsequently learned that its odometer had been replaced under warranty when the bike had done 1,300 miles, meaning the figure shown when he bought it was lower than the true mileage.

Mr Burford claims he was unaware the odometer had been replaced by the original owner. He added that an additional 1,300 miles on the clock would have only reduced the bike's value by around £150. Following a complaint by the customer, Cornwall Trading Standards launched an investigation and decided to prosecute Mr Burford for an unfair trading offence relating to the incorrect mileage that appeared on an invoice.

The authority decided it could not deal with the matter by way of a written warning or formal caution because Mr Burford did not admit the offence.

He said: "It was such an affront to me because I have never done that. I have been dealing motorbikes for 30 years and if you run your business like that you will run into trouble because in the motorbike trade everybody knows everybody."

After various delays and several court appearances, the case was eventually dropped in August last year and Mr Burford's legal costs of around £1,500 were reimbursed out of central court funds, not by the council.

Mr Burford subsequently complained to the Local Government Ombudsman about the council's handling of the case, citing Trading Standards' policy that: "Before formal enforcement action is taken, officers will provide an opportunity to discuss the circumstances of the case and, if possible, resolve points of difference, unless immediate action is required."

Ombudsman investigator Gillian Earles ruled that some aspects of his complaint were outside her remit, but concluded: "I have not received any evidence to suggest the decision to prosecute the complainant was based on an attempt to target him personally, and do not consider the council's actions to be unreasonable in this instance."

A Trading Standards spokesman said: "Cornwall Council's Trading Standards service received a complaint from a Cornish resident about a motorcycle purchased from Mr Burford and consequently instigated an investigation into the matter.

"Mr Burford subsequently complained about the action taken by Trading Standards to the Local Government Ombudsman. The Ombudsman reviewed the matter and concluded that she did not consider the council's actions to be unreasonable in this instance."