An internet fraudster who admitted his part in a sophisticated scam on the auction website eBay was yesterday jailed by a Bradford judge.

Jodi Halliday, 24, was described by Judge Geoffrey Kamil as "an important cog" in the scam after hearing how he had worked with others to con eBay users out of around £60,000.

Gavin Howie, prosecuting, told Bradford Crown Court that Halliday had set up four bank accounts in his name into which unsuspecting bidders paid for items that were never delivered.

The gang had posted false feedback on the website, which allowed them to keep advertising goods for sale.

Various victims had complained to eBay about the fraud but were told that they should contact their local police.

Mr Howie said that although the scam was a sophisticated operation, Halliday's involvement had not been on the same level.

"The police did not think that he was bright enough to have thought this up but clearly without him putting himself in danger of being caught these other persons would not have been able to proceed as they have," he said.

Halliday, of Higher Coach Road, Baildon, who was taking a 15 percent cut of the profits, pleaded guilty to four counts of entering into a money laundering agreement.

His barrister Gerald Hendron told the court that Halliday, who had a cocaine addiction, had handed himself into the police in June last year even though they were not aware of his involvement.

Jailing him for a total of 15 months for the deception, Judge Kamil told Halliday that he accepted he had not been the prime mover but added that the offences crossed the custody threshold.

He said: "It seems to be a new type of offence that is being committed now, making use of the internet and people's undoubted trust that they have on these sites. It seems to me that this is a new type of breach of trust offence.

"People are entitled to trust what's put on their screen and on the internet and get what they are paying for but you were involved in a quite a sophisticated scam depriving people of receiving goods for which they had paid good money for."

Halliday, who has a number of previous convictions for burglary, was also jailed for another nine months to run consecutively for another offence of burglary when he broke into Salt Grammar School, in Baildon, and stole three flat screen monitors and a computer tower.

He asked for another two similar offences to be taken into consideration.