A COWBOY builder took ￡25,000 from his customers - but left their homes with no roofs before claiming he had cancer to dodge work.
Roofer Joseph Gardener, 35 - from Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees - left one customer with tiles falling onto their shared driveway and another with a hole in his bedroom ceiling.
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A cowboy builder took ￡25,000 from his customers - but left their homes with no roof Credit: Evening Gazette
A third was forced to climb up onto his roof in the middle of the night during a storm - after the tarpaulin came off.
But even so, Gardener happily took money for materials and continually asked his customers to pay the next instalment despite failing to turn up to carry out the arranged work.
The rogue builder listed off a variety of excuses to his furious customers - even telling one that he had cancer.
Gardener pleaded guilty to nine counts of fraud between August 2019
and December 2020. He took a total of ￡25,000 in payment from nine separate customers.
A judge handed Gardener a nine month prison sentence, suspended for
18 months and an order with a 30 day rehabilitation requirement.
The builder was also instructed to pay off ￡12,350 - half of what he had been paid- to his customers through monthly payments of ￡750, Teesside Crown Court heard.
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The court heard that one victim was driven to a breakdown after Gardener, from J&J Roofing, failed to finish work on his house.
In a statement, the homeowner told the court that he had, "worked solidly for three months, 12 hours a day with no socialising to earn the money for a new roof and loft conversion".
But Gardener failed to turn up on January 17, 2020, to start the work, despite the fact the money for materials had been paid.
The homeowner bumped into the builder in the pub, and Gardener promised he'd start on January 20. He then requested further payment.
But several issues cropped up with the roof not long after - including the discovery of a hole in his bedroom ceiling.
'WORST JOB I'VE EVER SEEN'
Eventually another builder came in to fix the issue - and branded the work "the worst job he'd ever seen''.
The homeowner had to move back to his parents and get another builder
into re-do his roof.
The second builder said,'' it was the worst job he'd ever seen''.
Defending the roofer, Chris Baker told the court that Gardener's life had been, ''in catastrophe for a number of years''.
He had inherited the business from his dad, but hadn't coped well when his father died in 2018.
Judge Anthony Hawks told Gardener he was not going to send him to
prison: "None of your customers are people of significant
means. You, through a mixture of fraud, dishonesty and incompetence
woefully abused your customer's trust.
"You can leave the dock. I hope we never see you again."
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Roofer Joseph Gardener, 35 - from Billingham - left one customer with tiles falling off his roof Credit: Evening Gazette 3
A third was forced to climb up onto his roof in the middle of the night during a storm Credit: Evening Gazette We pay for your stories!
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