A BUSINESSMAN has described how “over-zealous” marketing almost landed him in jail.

Darrell Henry pleaded guilty last month to making exaggerated claims about his ability to obtain council tax rebates.

The Dewsbury man was given a suspended prison sentence by a judge who accused him of “sharp and shoddy” practice.

Speaking exclusively to the Examiner yesterday, Mr Henry admitted he had been “over-zealous” after setting up Council Tax Review in 2009.

“I’m not trying to hide,” he said. “We’ve made some technical errors and we’ve been suitably punished for them.

“When we first started we used words like ‘guarantee we can lower your council tax’. We were very confident because we had already re-banded the house next door.

“If you look at the regulations we were over-zealous in our marketing. I hold my hands up and take my punishment accordingly.”

Mr Henry pleaded guilty to breaching the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 by sending out misleading flyers, failing to make applications on behalf of clients and not giving refunds to customers who cancelled their contracts within the seven-day “cooling off” period.

But Mr Henry put these problems down to teething troubles when he set up the Huddersfield-based business three years ago.

“We missed three customers out of 265 who have asked for a refund,” he said.

“We were switching from a manual to a computerised system at the time.”

Mr Henry added: “Some of the re-banding applications we made had errors on the submission. In the first week or two we used some wrong forms. It was a very simple administrative error.

“Although we used the wrong paperwork we very quickly corrected that. We did get those properties re-banded.”

All the charges in court related to the company’s first year of trading from September 2009 to September 2010.

Speaking in his office in Fitzwilliam House on Fitzwilliam Street, Mr Henry told the Examiner he had tackled the company’s early problems.

“I introduced a full-time accountant and operational manager,’’ he said. “We put formal procedures in place.”

Mr Henry was given a suspended prison sentence at Bradford Crown Court last month. He was also told to pay costs of £12,500 and ordered to do 150 hours unpaid community work.

The father-of-two admitted the publicity of the case had been hard to handle.

“I was concerned about going to court,” he said. “I realised it would have a big impact.

“More than anything, it was the embarrassment factor of being slapped all over Calendar and Look North and every single local newspaper.”

Concerned customers called the company following last month’s court case.