A rogue builder who preyed on frail pensioners has been ordered to explain what happened to £300,000 that has vanished from his bank accounts.
Johnny Carroll led a gang of rogue builders who operated in Teignbridge, 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 but was brought back to face confiscation of cash or assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Carroll has failed to provide any information to financial investigators or any explanation of what happened to £326,883 which passed through his bank accounts when he was running his fraudulent business.
A henchman from Swansea who helped him launder the money from his scams has agreed to repay £11,650 which was frozen in his account when the pair were busted by trading standards officials.
John Rice, aged 21, will sign over the money within days after Judge Graham Cottle assessed his benefit from crime to have been £28,950 and his available assets to be the cash in the frozen account.
The judge set a new timetable for Carroll to provide financial information. If he fails to do so a hearing will be held to decide how much he must repay and how much longer he will stay in jail if he fails to do so.
Mr Alan Fuller, prosecuting, said:"Carroll’s current assets appear to be £100 but this is not a case where the prosecution accept that will be the sum confiscated.
"There is a possibility that there have been tainted gifts or that there are hidden assets because the investigators looked at all sums over £500 that had come out of the account and they came to £326,883."
Mr Nicholas Murphy, defending, said there had been problems in taking instructions and carrying out financial inquiries but he hoped to provide the necessary information within the new deadline."
In the original case last year Carroll, aged 26, 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.
The judge was told how Carroll posed as a reputable roofer and builder with a range of apparently respectable companies when in reality he was a convicted fraudster 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 £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.
He channeled £79,000 through his own bank accounts until trading standards officers started to close in on him, when he recruited Rice, who was an unemployed teenager, to launder money from 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.