A HORSE trader whose deceit led to a rider breaking his ribs has been given a 20-month suspended prison sentence.

Brooke Lee, who also used the name Kate Jones, twice used York Auction Centre to sell 14-year-old mares as seven-year-olds with false horse passports and false medical details, York Crown Court heard.

Judge Andrew Stubbs QC said: “Horses destined for retirement were thereafter ridden with catastrophic consequences. You knew that.

“Still, your greed and desire for money led you to sell that horse on.

“You have done it before and behaved in a despicable way.

“You have shown a lack of remorse throughout proceedings. I hope anyone that employs you in the future hears of these offences.”

He gave her a 20-month prison sentence suspended for two years on condition she does 200 hours’ unpaid work and must repay £2,362.50.

The court case was the second time York trading standards had prosecuted Lee, 31, of Weston Drive, Otley. She pleaded guilty to four offences of fraud and one of money laundering.

Lee promised the original owner of the first, a mare with numerous medical problems including lameness called Remedy, that she would give her a good retirement home.

But despite Remedy being unfit to ride, she sold her on as a horse fit to ride in competitions and hid the vet’s certificate of its medical condition.

Remedy's lameness caused her to throw her new owner, who suffered broken ribs.

York Crown Court heard that the second mare, Summer, which Lee claimed had been part of a riding club had in reality been cared for by the RSPCA and never ridden before.

Both horses were sold with passports that Lee doctored to disguise the horses’ true condition.

In Remedy’s case Lee got her in an exchange arrangement, claiming she would give the horse’s original owner a male horse.

But on the day she was supposed to hand over the male horse, she claimed he had been put to sleep.

In 2011, she was given a nine-month prison sentence suspended for two years for similar offences.