A LONER who was enlisted to help in a credit card fraud has started a two-month jail term.

John Carver, 41, signed a false name when goods, including computer equipment, were delivered to the house next door.

He had been out of trouble for 20 years and owned up when interviewed by police.

Sentencing him at Burnley Crown Court, Judge Raymond Bennett said credit card fraud was rife and it caused honest members of society, through payments of charges to banks, an enormous amount of money.

He said when a person was caught doing it, there had to be a mark against them.

Carver, of Heywood Street, Great Harwood, admitted conspiring to obtain property by deception.

The court heard between August and November 1999, stolen credit cards were used to obtain electrical items and other property over the telephone.

They were delivered to various addresses, including Heywood Street, next door to Carver's.

When delivery was attempted either the driver would find a note on the door, asking for the parcel to be left next door or somebody would come out of next door and sign for the parcel. On several occasions, that was Carver.

Police were contacted and accompanied a driver when he made a delivery.

Carver was inside his house and was arrested by police.

When he was interviewed, he said he had signed for three or four boxes but didn't know what was in them.

Robert Crawford, defending, said two men from next door knocked at Carver's door one day and asked him to sign for the parcels, but not in his own name.

That alerted him to the probability that the goods were being received by somebody in untoward circumstances .

The defendant had had a lot of problems in recent years.

He was married many years ago, but that foundered and when he married again in August last year, that relationship was on the rocks after a few weeks. He had recently seen a pyschiatrist to be treated for depression.

Mr Crawford said Carver was on medication and was also drinking far too much.