A “persistent” rogue trader who repeatedly ripped off customers including charging more than £30,000 for a job worth £4,000 has been jailed.
Barry Benjamin, 53, of Kilncroft, Brookvale, Runcorn, was prosecuted after a string of complaints over his gardening and handyman enterprise trading as “Easylife Garden Maintenance”. The "incomplete" and "poor quality" jobs were carried out in Halton and surrounding areas.
Halton Borough Council Trading Standards found that in one incident, Benjamin carried out work at someone’s home, only for it to be later assessed by an expert as “low quality” and of “no value”. This meant the householder had to complete it again in its entirety.
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Another victim received no written contract or paperwork such as outlining the right to cancel, and after taking a “sizeable” deposit, Benjamin failed to carry out any work.
One resident hired Benjamin for a variety of gardening work but the tasks were either not completed or not to order - such as a wall built around a metre shorter in length than requested.
He pleaded guilty to fraud after taking more than £30,000 from a customer for work on a property that was assessed by a surveyor as being worth a fraction of that figure at about £4,000.
A council spokeswoman said Benjamin had been hired to carry out garden-tidying and installing CCTV, a kitchen, internal doors and central heating, but all that took place was were the internal doors, three units and a laminate floor in the kitchen, and cutting some trees.
Benjamin was jailed at Liverpool Crown Court on June 29 to two years in prison as he also received a Criminal Behaviour Order to last five years.
He had previously pleaded guilty to multiple breaches of consumer protection law but sentencing was delayed to prosecute him for the fraud case. His campaign of ripping people off took place from 2018-19.
A spokeswoman for Halton Council said Judge Neil Flewitt, QC, noted Benjamin had a history of offending since 2012 for which he had already received a “warning shot” and repeated warnings from the local authority.
Judge Flewitt said most of Benjamin’s victims were either elderly, vulnerable or recently bereaved, and the rogue trader even carried on committing crimes while being prosecuted.
He said Benjamin presented a risk to the public as he sent him down to “deter you and other people”.
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