A market stall owner inflated the turnover of his Dairy World business by a factor of ten so he could claim repayments of £9,000 a month by the taxman.
Terence Sickelmore, a market stall owner at Exmouth Market, got away with the fraudulent activity for eight years because he realised that claims for rebates of less that £10,000 a month were not checked.
It resulted in the trader being paid £913,729 which he was not entitled to, Devon Live reported.
Terence Sickelmore filed online VAT claims which led to him being paid the huge sum of money per month.
The 55-year-old was only caught because a sharp-eyed assessor noticed that the turnover declared in Sickelmore's income tax self assessment was ten times less that that in his VAT claims.
It was also said Terence Sickelmore spent the money on gambling - he devised the scam after becoming addicted to it in 2010.
He has lost his home, his business and his marriage as a result of his fraud and plans to go round schools lecturing on the dangers of gambling addiction when he gets out of jail.
Sickelmore, formerly of Exmouth but now of High Street, Honiton, admitted VAT fraud and was jailed for three years by Judge Timothy Rose at Exeter Crown Court.
He told him: "I have no doubt whatsoever this offence, committed over years, was committed by reason of a devastating addiction to gambling which you found yourself in the grip of.
"You gambled online, in betting shops and other sources and were gambling in the region of £9,000 a month in a fairly unsophisticated way, primarily in games of pure chance with no particular expertise involved.
"You must have known you were suffering from this addiction and had every opportunity over eight years to seek help or try to stop."
Mr Ian Graham, prosecuting, said between 2010 and 2018 Sickelmore made online claims for VAT credits of £933,869, when all he was actually entitled to was £20,139, meaning the total fraud was £913,729.
You can read the full story here on Devon Live.
