A former Bradford councillor who pocketed more than £90,000 from tax fraud has been warned he faces a prison sentence.

Robert Payne, 38, who was a Conservative and Independent councillor for the Keighley West ward, pleaded guilty to three offences of cheating the public revenue and three of contravening a disqualification order when he appeared at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

Payne, now of Knowle Avenue, Blackpool, was allowed bail until he is sentenced on Monday, December 16.

He admitted failing to declare income and cheating the revenue of Income Tax, National Insurance contributions and VAT by submitting false invoices.

The allegations stretched from 2003 to March last year. The remaining three charges involved acting as a director, directly or indirectly, of Airedale Accounting Group Ltd, Airedale Company Formations Ltd and Airedale Leasing Ltd after he was barred from doing so at Bradford Crown Court in 2011.

Prosecutor Nadeem Bashir told the court that Payne’s benefit from criminality was £91,243 but he was “a man of straw” with nothing to show for it.

Judge Colin Burn made a confiscation order in that amount and ordered Payne to hand over a nominal available amount of £5. He was given 14 days to find the money of face a day in jail in default of payment.

Sentence was adjourned for a report from the probation service and a medical report sought by Payne’s legal team. Judge Burn told Payne: “They are all serious matters and very likely to result in some form of custodial sentence.”

Mr Bashir asked for an hour of court time to be set aside for the sentencing hearing.

In December, 2011, Payne was locked up for five months for animal cruelty and a month for breaching a suspended jail sentence for fraud. Bradford Crown Court heard how he tortured and slaughtered his four pet kittens by swinging them round at his then home in Ethel Street, Keighley, and smashing their heads. Police and the RSPCA were met by an appalling scene after Payne turned his home into a bloodbath. Three kittens were found in his kitchen freezer and one was discovered decapitated.