Bullying builder avoids prison after exploiting pensioner

The cowboy builder’s victims included a 78-year-old man, who lives alone, who paid a total of £2,940 after repeated visits by Andrew Wilson over a period of about two months. Each time he visited the victim, Wilson said further work was needed. A chartered surveyor who later examined the work estimated its value at £875.

Yesterday Wilson, 43, of Stockbridge Lane, Bentley, Doncaster, was sentenced at York Crown Court to nine months imprisonment suspended for two years, and ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work, following an investigation into his business, Weatherguard, by North Yorkshire County Council’s trading standards team.

Wilson had earlier pleaded guilty, at Selby Magistrates’ Court, to several offences which arose from complaints made to trading standards by consumers, after Wilson cold–called them offering to carry out roofing work to their properties in the Selby area between July 2011 and January 2012.

Sentencing Wilson, Recorder Christopher Attwooll said: “You are a cowboy builder who bullied your customers into allowing you to do their work.”

County Councillor Chris Metcalfe, executive member for North Yorkshire Trading Standards said after it was important the public alerted trading standards or the police if they were targeted or suspected others had been.