Fraudulent Flintshire builder jailed for 21 months
A Deeside builder who admitted fraudulent trading has been jailed for 21 months following a trial at Caernarfon Crown Court.
Kevin Patrick Higgins of Fron Road, Connah’s Quay, was the sole director of Nyvek Ltd which was set up in the summer of 2016.
Mr Higgins ran the company on his own and advertised for jobs on Ratedpeople.com and Mybuilder.com.
Over the next two years Higgins obtained over 20 home improvement jobs in North Wales, Cheshire and Wirral.
He quoted very competitive prices, produced professional contracts and was approachable and apparently knowledgeable.
Nyvek Ltd also had a website that falsely indicated that the company was a medium sized established business with an excellent track record.
The court heard that Mr Higgins took large initial payments of up to 40% of the total job costs, often amounting to many thousands of pounds, on the pretext that this was to buy materials.
Regular phased payments were requested as extensions progressed to the extent that Mr Higgins had often obtained most of the agreed price before the roof had even been completed, or even in one case before the roof was begun.
After completing the initial ground work progress would be slow and Higgins was seldom seen at the jobs.
He would use sub-contractors to do the work but they were not always paid and there was a high turnover.
There was often a shortage of materials, even though they had been paid for, and expensive items such as windows and doors were seldom provided at all.
When most of the money in a job had been obtained Higgins would move on to the next front loaded contract.
Jobs that were described as 6-8 weeks dragged on for months and months, and in most cases were never finished.
The quality of the work that was completed was very poor and often needed to be corrected.
The overwhelming number of customers lost thousands or tens of thousands of pounds, and were left with huge bills to repair damage and finish the work.
Counsel for Higgins stated that the business had started as a genuine business, but he had tried to trade out of difficulties.
Judge Huw Rees noted that the fraudulent actions that formed the case had continued for 16 months and described Higgins actions as a pernicious fraud and said that lies tripped lightly off Higgins’ tongue.
Higgins initially denied fraudulent trading but changed his plea before the trial began.
He had admitted being a company director while an undischarged bankrupt.
Jailing him for 21 months, Judge Huw Rees said: “No sentence I pass will alleviate in whole or in part the householders of their dreadful experience.”
Andrew Farrow, Flintshire County Council’s Chief Officer for Planning, Environment and Economy, said:
“This was a long complicated investigation for Flintshire’s trading standards service.
The business was clearly fraudulent and a number of households were deceived by Mr Higgins’ fraud into believing he was a competent builder.
They lost large sums of money due to his actions and the sentence reflects the serious nature of the offence.”
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