A rogue builder who preyed on frail pensioners in Teignbridge and beyond has been forced to repay £90,000 to the victims of his scam under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Johnny Carroll led a gang of rogue builders who operated in Devon and South Wales and overcharged vulnerable customers for roofing and house repairs.
He was jailed for three years and two months at Exeter Crown Court in May 2017 and brought back to court under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Recorder Mr Jonathan Barnes approved an agreed order which set the benefit which Carroll received from crime as £200,000 and the recoverable assets to be £90,000.
The Judge ordered him to pay the £90,000 within three months or serve a further year in jail.
The money will be divided up among 19 victims, who will get almost all their money back.
The judge said: ‘I am very pleased that they are getting something back. I have no doubt he can get his hands on this money.’
The agreement ended a dispute in which the prosecution claimed that £326,883 which passed through Carroll’s bank accounts while he was running his fraudulent business could not be traced.
A criminal associate who helped him launder some of the money from his scams has already agreed to repay a further £11,650 at an earlier hearing.
That money was frozen in his account when the scam was closed down by trading standards officials.
In the original case last year Carroll, aged 27, of Calcutt Park, Cricklade, Wiltshire, admitted fraud and Rice, aged 21, of Ceri Road, Swansea, admitted two charges of money laundering.
Carroll was jailed for three years and two months and Rice for 12 weeks by Judge Mrs Justice May.
Carroll posed as a reputable roofer and builder with a range of apparently respectable companies when in reality he was a convicted fraudster who was already on a suspended sentence for ripping off previous customers.
He led a gang of workers who toured the West Country and South Wales looking for gullible elderly customers who needed minor works done on their walls or roofs.
He quoted reasonable estimates but once his team was on site the price rocketed and the victims were bullied into handing over thousands of pounds.
In the space of 22 months he defrauded 21 pensioners out of at least £108,000, sometimes taking confused and frail customers to the bank to withdraw cash.
He charged one customer in Stokeinteignhead, South Devon, £13,350 for driveway work which was worth only £170 and took £12,650 from a woman in Cardiff by returning three times to do the same work on her roof.
The victims were almost all elderly or infirm. Two have died since giving video recorded interviews to police. At least one more has had to hand over their financial affairs to their family as a result of Carroll’s swindling.
He used eight different company names and often set up local telephone numbers for just long enough to rake in business from distributing fliers before he closed them down.
Carroll never gave customers their statutory rights to cancel and offered guarantees which he did not honour and were worthless because he changed his mobile number so often that nobody could trace him.
Carroll approached almost all of the 21 victims in person between July 2012 to May 2014. For much of that time he was subject to a suspended sentence passed in July 2013 at Swansea Crown Court.
He used company names including Property Care, JW Contractors, Westfield Driveway, Westfield Rooflines, South West Trees and Landscapes, Torbay Roofing and Building, and ripped off customers in Devon, Wales, Bath, and Buckinghamshire.
Crimes and victims.
July 2012 Llangynidr, S Wales. roofing, £2,650
October 2012, Portishead, couple aged 89, roofing, £4,250.
Oct 2012, old and frail pensioner, Bath, roofing, £5,000.
January 2013. elderly couple, Buckinghamshire, wall repairs £8,200.
April 2013, Stokeinteignhead, driveway, £13,350.
May 2013, Dawlish, roofing, £1,100.
June 2103, Brixham, roofing, £2,100.
June 2013, Tavistock, roofing, £7,000.
July 2013, Gunnislake, roofing, £1,750.
September 2013, Bristol, roofing, £3,600.
October 2013, Swansea, roofing, £12,650.
October 2013, Swansea, £4,150.
January 2014, Swansea, roofing, £5,250.
March 2014, Bristol, landscaping, £300.
March 2104, Bath, roofing, £6,950.
March 2014, Paignton, roofing, £2,850
March 2014, Newton Abbot, roofing, £9,500.
April 2014, Exeter, building work, £780.
April 2014, Newton Abbot, roofing, £500.
May 2014, Torquay, roofing, £1,050.
May 2014, Torquay, roofing, £1100.