Cowboy workers con elderly

Cowboy businessmen who conned pensioners into spending thousands of pounds on unnecessary repairs to their homes in the Black Country and Staffordshire have been ordered to pay £30,000.

Aqualine Damp Systems Ltd director Mark Camm was sentenced to 300 hours of community service while canvasser Phillip Vyse was given a prison sentence for eight months.

The pair, along with surveyor Barry Purcell, managed to secure damp proof work worth in excess of £11,000 from nine properties in Walsall, Staffordshire and Solihull where the majority of people targeted were aged over 70. The two salesmen for the Stoke-based company had not been given the right training. Vyse misled one woman by saying she needed repairs after pouring water on a wall.

Other victims were given incorrect advice, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told yesterday.

Jonathan Salmon, prosecuting, said homes in Walsall, Norton Canes, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Solihull were targeted from 2005 to 2007.

Recorder Mr Michael Hall said all three had abused positions of trust and Camm, who ran the business for ten years, had failed to ensure staff were properly trained. He refused to cancel Mark Camm's directorship saying it would effectively end the business and mean its victims would not get their money back.

Aqualine was fined £6,750, told to repay six victims £11,032 and ordered to pay £11,986 in court costs.

Bosses had previously admitted four offences relating to reckless misdiagnosis of damp and the selling of unnecessary remedial work.

Camm, 43, of Basford in Newcastle-under-Lyme, admitted four offences under section 14 of the Trade Descriptions Act while Purcell, 38, of Langton in Stoke, admitted six. He was ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service and given a six month supervision order. Vyse, 41, of Westlands, Newcastle-under-Lyme, was found guilty of two charges of knowingly making false statements and one of recklessly making a statement which was false.