A PAIR of aggressive cowboy builders who left a vulnerable woman in York thousands of pounds poorer were sent away from court yesterday, after a judge told them to come up with £13,000 to compensate their victim.

Builders Jeremy White, of Hauxwell near Richmond, and Robert Montgomery of Kirby Malzead near Ripon, had both pleaded guilty acting without proper professional diligence, and leaving a vulnerable disabled woman with a leaking and substandard extension.

The pair appeared before Recorder Benjamin Nolan QC at York Crown Court yesterday, but will have to wait another month to learn their sentence.

The judge adjourned their case, telling them to come back in four weeks with £13,870 in compensation safely in solicitors’ bank accounts, or with plans to pay it.

The court heard the pair, operating as Ripon Building Specialists, had quoted £21,780 to build a single storey kitchen extension on a home in York.

York Press:

Their customer, a woman in her 50s, lived alone and was partially sighted, had hearing problems and had a painful condition that left her with a permanent disability.

The extension was planned to make the kitchen more accessible, and to make room for her elderly mother in case she needed to move in. Work began in late summer 2014, and problems soon appeared.

A succession of different labourers seemed to do little work, but when she called the Montgomery and White they left her feeling “fobbed off”.

Prosecutor Glenn Parsons told the court White was initially dismissive, but as the months went on work became more and more sporadic, and the woman turned to City of York Council’s building control department who issued the first of two formal notices listing a “litany of issues” with the building.

White, 62, then got aggressive with council staff, and he terrified the victim by threatening to “come in the night and knock it down” if she contacted him again, Mr Parsons said.

Soon after, when she posted a negative review of the company online, Montgomery, 39, phoned her “shouting and raging”, and threatening to “stir things up with the benefits agency”.

In fact, the benefits agency received an anonymous tip off around the time the pair were arrested, and their victim faced a six month inquiry before she was completely exonerated.

As the months went on, the pair did not examine the work, and they refused to refund any of her money.

Another building firm, paid £8,000 to put right the work, found problems with drains, toys for a pet cat stuffed into pipes, and cabling laid in concrete without proper plastic conduits.

The extension has also had rising damp, caused by an improperly laid patio step, and a roof pitch so shallow that rain water still comes in and has ruined any decoration.

The ordeal has caused severe financial difficulties for both the victim and her elderly mother, who has had to put £9,000 forward to try to make the building in some way habitable.

It also left the woman without a kitchen for five months, something that made life even more difficult as she fell and broke her shoulder during the ordeal.

At the hearing yesterday, the pair initially claimed to have no significant assets but White later offered £8,000 in compensation, money he could borrow from his brother; and Montgomery offered an initial lump sum of £2,000 to be followed by monthly payments of £250.

Instead of sentencing them at yesterday’s hearing Recorder Nolan said he wanted to see money “up front”, and adjourned the case until later April.

Montgomery would likely face a suspended sentence, he said, but for White as “senior partner” in the enterprise a jail sentence could still be given, he added.