Two former directors of the recruitment firm Corporate Services Group have been jailed after being found guilty of fraud.

Roger Eden, 47, and Geoffrey Brailey, 51, were yesterday sentenced to three years and nine months' imprisonment and were disqualified from acting as company directors for eight years.

A jury at Croydon Crown Court unanimously passed a guilty verdict on the two men, for accounting irregularities designed to overstate profits in 1997 and 1998.

In 1997, Eden and Brailey fiddled the books so that CSG's results were overstated by £3m.

They instructed employees to make false and misleading entries into accounts, drew up bogus sales invoices and to reinstate invoices that had been previously written off.

The irregularities came to light in 1998, before the company's next set of results were due to be published.

Former company secretary, John Abrahamson, 57, was acquitted of the charges.

CSG is now under new management. No spokesman for the company was available for comment.

But a statement in its results said the case would not impact CSG's financial or trading position.