'We asked them to stop!' Rogue builder conned pensioners out of £59,500 life savings - leaving them 18p

Rogue trader Michael McDonald and members of his family preyed on a 71-year-old woman, bringing her roses and ice cream before emptying her bank account and leaving a “complete mess” of shoddy and unfinished work - and a victim “lying awake at night with worry”.

Shrewsbury Crown Court was told how McDonald, who is now 24 but was a teenager at the time, and members of his family first turned up at the couple’s home in Aston Drive, Newport, in January 2018, offering to trim conifer trees for £400.

The female victim, who was the primary target of the fraud, agreed. But the con artists soon put the bill up to £1,300 for work that allegedly needed doing.

A local authority expert determined that a legitimate trader would have charged between £450 to £600, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The McDonalds then “noticed something was wrong with the paving slabs,” saying that £20,000 worth of work needed to be done. They told her they would give her a “discount” and fix them for £10,000 if the victim paid £3,000 up front.

They took the money but did a haphazard job, leaving behind “wobbly” slabs in a worse condition than before.

The McDonalds also offered to build an office extension and a summer house for the victims, accepting thousands of pounds.