Raymond Nevitt, Jeremy Greene and Kay Boardman were sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on 20 May after being convicted of fraudulent trading in March.

The three were found guilty of creating false sales documents and inter-company transactions designed to deceive companies such as IBM and Barclays into providing finance.

Police continue to appeal for details on the whereabouts of Nevitt, who is still on the run. Nevitt has been sentenced to 45 months’ imprisonment and disqualified from acting as a company director for 10 years.

Greene and Boardman were handed suspended sentences of 21 months and 12 months respectively.

All three defendants were directors of companies in the Ravelle Group, consisting of Ravelle Limited and Ravelle Printers Limited trading as Just Printers Limited.

The case has been running since 2001 when it was referred to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) by Greater Manchester Police. SFO was unable to comment.

Neal Somaia, owner of reseller Mighty Micro Manchester, claimed the judgment was a victory for the channel. “The fewer bad eggs there are left, the better. This kind of thing makes it more difficult for everyone else. The next time a reseller goes to IBM for financing, IBM will be more reluctant to work with them,” he said.

John Adams, managing director of Manchester-based reseller Mintra, claimed that such cases have exacerbated the credit crisis. “Mintra recently changed from selling boxes to selling services because it is so difficult to obtain credit from companies that remain wary about whether or not they will get any money back,” he said.