A fake builder told his client that his wife had died after giving birth to avoid finishing a job

A distraught builder who cost victims £90,000 and left their homes in disrepair tried to get out of work by telling them his wife had died after giving birth while she was still alive. Leonard J Richards, 24, subjected three victims from Cornwall, from Newlyn to St Austell, to his gruesome work in 2022 and 2023.

He pressured them into paying thousands of pounds ahead of work and left their homes in a state of disrepair – one had water seeping through a hole in the roof and dangerous cables that could have electrocuted them.

Richards, of Whitemoor, near St Austell, appeared at Truro Crown Court for sentencing today (July 19) after pleading guilty to taking part in a fraudulent business run by a sole trader, two counts of fraud by false representation and making and supplying an article. for using fraud.

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Prosecuting the case on behalf of Cornwall Council’s trading standards department, Harry Ahuja said Richards took on three construction jobs for clients he was not qualified or able to complete. In some cases, he even told victims they needed extra, unnecessary work to get them to pay more money.

Richards advertised his services on a platform called Bark, with each of his three victims contacting him for offers. He was operating as a sole trader with a trading name at the time and had no qualifications.

Its first victims, Mr and Mrs Rogers, inquired about the possibility of having a large bathroom in one of their semi-detached holiday homes in February 2023 and further work to complete a garden room, with aim to do similar in some of their other holiday homes in the future.

They described Richards as causing “havoc” in the various cottages as work began and said it would be completed in four weeks, in time for holiday bookings. They said the overall standard was poor quality and had to be redone by another builder. Realizing the state of what Richards had done, they told him to leave and not return.

A professional electrician who attended found Richards’ wiring work unsafe and said it could have caused an electric shock. The couple said their reputation with neighbors and visitors alike had suffered as they had to cancel bookings.

The couple paid Richards £17,415 for the work and had to pay a further £18,000 to another builder to fix it.

The second group of victims were Mr and Mrs Blackshaw, from Penryn. They hired him to clear their gutters and roof of moss and to do extra work to complete a garden room.

In August 2022 he provided a quote and told them they needed some tiles replaced on their roof, also showing them a hole in the garden room roof and suggesting a full replacement.

He insisted on 50% of the quote upfront, which was £3,500, and started work. After he started, he also suggested that the roof beams were rotten and needed replacing, pressuring them to agree to this and providing a forged invoice from a non-existent company for making the beams.

A further £3,800 was paid that evening. Investigating officers visited the address on that invoice and found that it was not a real address and there was no sign that the beam company existed.

Richards never returned to the property after this, and torrential rain flooded the couple’s roof, including the bathroom, bedroom and staircase with an open hole in the roof. Despite repeated attempts to contact Richards, he did not return and the victims ended up in an emergency shelter.

They paid a total of £7,300 to the defendant and had to pay £4,750 to make good. The professional roofer found that the garden room was dangerously constructed and needed to be removed.

When urged to return from Blackshaw, Richards at one point told them he could not because his wife was in Derriford Hospital suffering from complications after giving birth. In an email, he later told them he had died. As part of the investigation, commercial officers then attended his address and found his wife very much alive.

The ordeal has left the victims, who had spent eight years completely renovating their home before this, feeling “particularly distraught”. Mr Blackshaw said what started as an investigation to clear some muscle went much further. “Now we are exceptionally wary of all tradesmen, we almost treat them with suspicion, although they may be honest and well-meaning people.”

Cataline Smith, from St Austell, was the third victim. The 81-year-old asked about having work done on the fascias on the roof last year. At the inspection, Richards said her extra work needed to be done and said there was an “unsupported chimney” which left her at “imminent risk”, quoting £9,000 for that work.

She paid a total of £21,000 to the defendant for work that Trading Standards deemed unnecessary. Remedial work to fix this cost her a further £20,000.

A victim impact statement detailed how she suffered panic attacks and sleepless nights as a result and feels betrayed that she treated Richards and his staff with respect when she felt he was ‘callous and calculating’ .

Richards also visited her son’s home, owned by the victim, and said the chimney needed to be removed. The work was done to a poor standard and during high winds the tiles flew off the roof.

The defendant ignored it instead of returning to fix it. Initially, he said that he himself was in the hospital, then that his brother-in-law had died and that he was arranging a funeral for him.

In total, Richards received £45,715 from his victims for faulty and unfinished work. Combined they paid a further £42,750 to fix this at a total cost of around £90,000.

Defending, Ed Bailey said Richards had a lack of previous convictions and had shown genuine remorse. “He knows he made a mistake and he was not able to complete the job and he was not qualified enough to do so and he takes full responsibility.”

He told how the defendant left school at 13, was home-schooled by his parents at their family’s caravan park and would help with maintenance. “That gave him an idea that he could eventually set up on his own,” he said. Richards then did it after his father’s death at the start of the pandemic to support his family.

“He certainly jumped in way too deep and didn’t really think about the consequences,” Mr Bailey said. He added that the money is gone because Richards spent it on gambling and cocaine.

In his sentencing remarks, Mr Recorder Simon Levene said the offenses were far too serious for anything other than a prison sentence. “You have destroyed the lives, albeit temporarily in some cases, of three households,” he said, saying there was no way the victims would “get a dime back.”

“The effects of what you have done to them will be long lasting… it is extremely disturbing and disturbing for people to go through what you put your victims through.” Richards was sentenced to 16 months in prison.