TWO women from Oldham who assisted an organised fraud group which took £180,000 from various businesses have been spared jail for their involvement.

Hedley Brown, 56, and Robert Salinger, 37, targeted companies over two months where they would purport to be an employee of another firm and ask to borrow equipment.

It would then be transported to them before they would make off with it.

Brown, of Wilson Way in Oldham, and Salinger, of Woodford Road in Failsworth, will be sentenced for their frauds which took place in September and October 2016 next month.

This week at Manchester Minshull Street Court Rhona Davis, the partner of Brown, and Leigh Murphy, her daughter, appeared to be sentenced for their role in assisting of two of these frauds.

Murphy was involved in a fraud against Ashtead Plant Group where Salinger called saying she was from BAM Construction and asked to hire a digger, a saw and other equipment.

The gear was delivered to a lock up in Failsworth which Murphy rented.

The kit worth £32,000 was delivered before the Ashtead Plant Group became suspicious but was recovered by police on the M62.

Murphy, 27, initially denied being involved but messages later showed she knew what was going on and she confessed to assisting an organised fraud group.

Davis, 46, was engaged in a fraud against Kumho Tyres, when they were called by Salinger pretending to be from the BAM Construction Group, and asking for hundreds of tyres.

Some 202 of these were transported to Bury before they were later put into a Ford Transit van which Davis had rented.

She also denied involvement but on her phone police found an image of a tyre sent to Brown with information as to the price.

She also confessed to assisting an organised fraud group.

Prosecutor Kevin Smack revealed the impact of the activity on the two employees who fell foul of it.

The statement from the Ashtead Plant Group said: “The crime has affected how we work, there is extreme checks for equipment and into a company’s background.

“Staff have to be extremely vigilant.

“If this had not happened I would have progressed more quickly than I have done.”

He added of the Kumho employee: “I have subsequently left the company, a major reason was the fraud.

“I travelled to Greater Manchester to where it had been transported, and tried to get CCTV.

“Within 18 months I had left the company.”

Judge John Potter ordered the pair to each carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and placed them under a community order for 18 months as he accepted their limited involvement and the fact they did not benefit from the fraud.

Davis, of Reins Lee Avenue in Oldham was required to 15 days of rehabilitation activity and Murphy, of Tanners Fold in Oldham, to do 30.