JAILED: Rogue builders cheated pensioners out of more than £100,000
Rogue builders have been jailed for targeting elderly people and cheating them out of more than £100,000 with unnecessary, overpriced and shoddy work.
Three men were sentenced to jail terms for running a fraudulent property repair business that targeted vulnerable consumers in Dudley and Sandwell, following a three-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court. The sentences came after a fourth man was sentenced on March 17 for his part in the scheme.
Lee Evans, of Solihull, Andrew Blythe, of Coleshill, Mark Hunt, of Birmingham, and John Brookes, of Erdington, were brought to trial following a lengthy investigation by the National Trading Standards Central England Regional Investigations Team.
The court heard that the offences took place between 2007 and 2012 and that some victims, all of whom were retired and some in their 80s, were the subject of repeat offending.
One victim paid nearly £130,000 over several years for work, which experts estimated should have cost approximately £14,000.
This victim was repeatedly taken to his bank by Evans to withdraw cash to pay for the unnecessary work, the court heard.
Another victim in Dudley told the court how Evans and Blythe escalated the job from re-pointing to complete rebuilding of a chimney stack, with the price soaring to £7,200.
When the home owner refused to pay the money, Evans took his men off site, leaving her with a hole in her roof when it was snowing, the court was told.
The victim eventually paid the asking price to get Evans and Blythe back to finish the job. Evans, who ran LJ Evans & Son and LJ Evans Ltd with Blythe, was found guilty of four offences of fraud and was sentenced to five years in jail.
Blythe changed his plea to guilty to four offences of fraud on day six of the trial and was sentenced to four years and nine months.
The court was also told how Evans and Blythe often arranged for their victims to make cheque payments out to third parties, which included three employees of the business and a jewellery firm in Birmingham.
Cheques were converted into cash on the same day that they were written out.
Of the three men to whom cheques were made out, two of them were co-defendants, Mark Hunt and John Brookes, who had earlier both pleaded guilty to money laundering contrary to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
Hunt was sentenced to eight months, suspended for 18 months. Brookes received a sentence of 16 months in jail. The third individual has not yet been found.
Judge Roderick Henderson told Evans that what he had been involved with was 'the grossest cheating of vulnerable people'.
