A highly-respected former company director has been given a suspended prison sentence after he admitted his involvement in a series of asset-stripping transactions.

Richard Etherington, 63, tried to make arrangements for his retirement from the construction industry by removing almost £500,000 from the accounts of Sowerby Bridge-based firm John Crowther Construction Limited.

Etherington started the business in 1982 and Bradford Crown Court heard its turnover in 1994 reached £3.5 million.

But prosecutor John Muir said profits were modest - by March 1995, estimated to be about £22,000.

When trading became more difficult because of the depressed construction industry, it coincided with Etherington's waning interest in the business.

Etherington, of Bescerby Grove, Baildon, admitted four theft charges involving a total of just over £483,000. The court heard that after a liquidator was appointed, he repaid £360,000.

The court heard how Etherington used friends and business acquaintances as third parties in inflated land and property deals to take money from the company's account.

Aflat worth about £50,000 was said to have been purchased for three times that amount while farmland in Leeds, worth only £35,000, was bought by Crowther's for over £230,000.

His barrister, Derek Duffy, stressed that this was not a case of a man who lived an extravagant or lavish lifestyle at the expense of others.

Etherington had set out to try to avoid, but not evade, the payment of tax and ended up entering into transactions that had no commercial basis. "His belief was that his professional advisors thought this was an acceptable practice," said Mr Duffy.

But he added: "A director of a company must know that if you have a commercial contract with no commercial basis it could not be honest and he accepts that.''

Judge Norman Jones QC decided that Etherington's poor health and the exceptional circumstances surrounding the offences meant he could suspend a nine-month prison sentence for two years.

But he ordered that Etherington be disqualified from acting as a director for the next four years and pay £5,000 towards prosecution costs.

He recommended that police in the case, particularly DC Nigel Barnes, should be commended to the Chief Constable for their work.