Cowboy builder from Telford sentenced over £45,000 shoddy work at woman's house
A cowboy builder from Telford who charged a woman nearly £45,000 for shoddy work he never completed has been given a suspended prison sentence.
Victim Joyce Parkes needed the work on her home finished as quickly as possible because her son was terminally ill, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.
She was charged £44,900 for work including building a new orangery, landscaping and overhauling rooms.
But the work carried out by Jason Jones' firm Jones Windows Ltd, which he was a director of, was worth only £27,000 – and will need completely redoing, the court was told.
The total cost of undoing all of the poor work at the house in Stourbridge, including ripping down the orangery and starting from scratch, will be around £53,000, the court heard.
Mr Mark Jackson, prosecuting on behalf of Dudley Council's trading standards department, said a surveyor found problems with plumbing, electrics, insulation and foundations.
He added: "The defendant held himself out as a professional who had the necessary skills and expertise to carry out the work for which he took payment.
"He said he would project manage the job even if it was the case that he was using other workers.
"Any work that was carried out by anyone else was carried out on his instruction and, according to him in interview, under his supervision.
"The subcontractors that the defendant used were, if I can use the expression, cowboys."
Mr Michael Grey, defending, said Jones, aged 44, of Wombridge Road, Telford, had intended to complete the work but had run into financial difficulties.
Mr Grey said: "He has said throughout that he under-quoted but it was not a case of him taking the money and clearing off.
"His plan was to finish the work but he needed money to by the items to put in the works."
Jones, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to one charge of carrying on the business of a company with intent to defraud creditors or for other fraudulent purpose, one of dishonestly making a false representation to make a gain, two of knowingly or recklessly engaging in commercial practice contravening regulations and one of obstructing an authorised officer.
He was given a four-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to pay £5,000 in compensation to his victim.
Sentencing him, Judge Michael Dudley said: "The end result is that the work is going to have to be taken to pieces and restarted."
He added: "I am dealing with you not on the basis of dishonesty but on the basis of being competent to carry out the work you put forward."