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Cowboy builders jailed after filming themselves 'bodging' job while mocking their elderly customer

Cowboy builders jailed after filming themselves 'bodging' job while mocking their elderly customer

The group of lads all received sentences following their abhorrent crimes

Three cowboy builders have been jailed after filming themselves 'bodging' a job while mocking their elderly customer.

The shocking footage shows the three young men bragging about ripping off an unassuming senior victim who they say is 'really old'.

Phone footage filmed by the workers themselves showing the horrendous extortion has since landed the trio of lads in jail.

The clip shows the likes of Matty Rossiter, 18, James Rossiter, 25, and Dean Smith, 21, boasting as they reveal 'we find guys like this every day' by 'door-to-door knocking'.

The three workers filmed themselves on a customer's roof demanding huge amounts of money for their services from 82-year-old John Bray.

After replacing just a few tiles on the roof, the cowboy builders charged John a staggering £8,000.

Three cowboy builders have been jailed after filming themselves 'bodging' a job while mocking their elderly customer.
SWNS

The phone footage shows one of the men saying: "As you can see we're doing some roofing work here. We're doing some bodging.

"As you see, what we're doing is we are in some bungalows."

The builder continued: ''We've got two vans on the go - and as you can see, the guy we're working for, he's really old."

To really put salt in the wound, the individual in question then calls out to John, mocking him for his complete trust in the criminal labourers.

He jeered: "John, we're having quite a lot of money for this, aren't we?

"So we want to do you a good job. It's worth doing right, isn't it?"

He went on to poke fun out of the pensioner, adding: "It's your home, you need to live in it. So you don't want any more problems on the roof after we're gone, do you?"

The camera then pans to the poorly repaired roof, as the cameraman notes: "As you can see here, we don't need to pay thousands for advertisement."

Opening up a little more about the criminal scheme, the builder revealed: "It's on the door-to-door knocking, what I've done for all my life, and we find guys like this every day.

"We're having quite a lot of money for this, aren't we?"
SWNS

"The door-to-door knocking. It's the way forward."

However, after the three criminal builders faced some pretty serious consequences for their scam, it's clear that their antics were the farthest thing from 'the way forward'.

Their roofing job was later labelled by a chartered surveyor at Wiltshire Trading Standards as totally 'abysmal'.

The experts added that the work 'carried out with no attendant skill or competence' and 'probably without the use of appropriate hand tools'.

John's son Steve told the BBC that the group were 'despicable', and that he believed the death of his mother had been in part due to the fraud.

He told the news outlet: "They made a video laughing and joking, insulting my dad, laughing and joking while they were doing more damage.

"The feelings my parents had - the shame and embarrassment - my mum took that feeling to her grave. That's the worst part," the distraught son revealed.

And it's clear that John wasn't the trio's only victim, as the group also used multiple names for their business varying by county, including Southern Homecare, Chippenham Roofing, Skyline Roofing, Wiltshire Roofing and Yate Roofing.

The trio made £45,000 from crimes committed in 18 properties across Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Bristol between October 2020 and March 2021.

"The feelings my parents had - the shame and embarrassment - my mum took that feeling to her grave."
SWNS

Both of the Rossiter brothers admitted fraud by false representation and participating in a fraudulent business.

Matty was jailed for two years and three months for the offence and, at just 16-years-old at the time, he was one of the youngest offenders Wiltshire Trading Standards had ever discovered.

James was jailed for three years and four months, while Dean was sentenced to three years after pleading guilty to participating in a fraudulent business.

Judge Jason Taylor at Swindon Crown Court labelled the trio 'industrial scale' rogue builders, and reprimanded them for their 'arrogance' after laughing at their victim.

He said: "Over several months you mainly targeted elderly people and you viewed them as easy targets due to their vulnerability and felt no guilt about taking advantage of them.

"Your arrogance is notable. There was significant planning. You knew the bungalows you targeted would be occupied by the elderly."

Featured Image Credit: SWNS

Topics: UK News, Crime