Builder 'ripped off' customers for more than £200k

A builder who took £212,000 from seven customers for botched home improvements in a bid to save his business has been jailed for fraudulent trading.

Michael Haslam, from Derby, ran M&J Builders Limited while it was insolvent, taking money from homeowners and leaving them with "dangerous structures", The Insolvency Service said.

Derby Crown Court heard customers paid thousands of pounds between 2020 and 2022 for work that never took place or was of a "poor standard".

The 74-year-old, of Oaklands Avenue, Littleover, was sentenced on Wednesday to two years and four months in prison of which he will serve 40% before being released on licence.

Haslam, who pleaded guilty to one count of fraudulent trading in May, was also banned from being a director of a company for 15 years.

The court heard M&J Builders Limited was set up in 2016 and operated as a "legitimate business" with Haslam as director, however, prosecutor Tom Heath said in 2019 the company started to struggle financially.

Heath told the court Haslam was advised by an insolvency practitioner the company was bust and was issued with a High Court winding up order in November 2022.

The prosecutor said despite this Haslam "kept taking money" from members of the public with customers required to pay upfront for work that was not done.

Judge Shaun Smith KC said Haslam "closed his eyes to the inevitable", and "ripped off" families in a bid to "stay afloat".

The judge added Haslam got into a "terrible situation" but added the situation as far as the victims were concerned was "one of the saddest set of circumstances I've heard in a long time".

"It has had a seriously detrimental effect on the victims not just financially but emotionally and psychologically," he said.

The Insolvency Service said a woman paid Haslam £47,760 for a single storey extension and garage refurbishment before work stopped in June 2022.

She told Derby Crown Court the work had left her home in an "unsafe condition" that was "fully open to the elements".

In a victim impact statement, read to the court, she said: "As a family, we feel like we have missed out on a year of our lives.

"Time stood still and we felt locked in the living room of our house day-in, day-out, and it has been incredibly harrowing."

In mitigation defence barrister Paul Stimson told the court Haslam was "sorry" for his actions and was a "family man" who had no previous convictions.

The Insolvency Service said its investigations found almost £400,000 was paid from the M&J Builders Limited business account under the reference MG Haslam Expenses.

A £75,000 loan received by the company in October 2020 was gone within weeks and a further £63,055 was identified in cash withdrawals, the service said.

It added investigators found a personal account - which customers were told to pay into - had transferred more than £77,000 to Haslam's daughter.

Mark Stephens, chief investigator in the criminal investigations team at The Insolvency Service, said fraud was not a "victimless crime".

"Hearing how Michael Haslam has ruined his victims' properties really brings home the human cost of what he did," he said.

"Every single one of his victims would not have gone anywhere near him had they known the true state of his company's finances.

"Fraudulent trading is one of the most serious offences the Insolvency Service investigates, and we will continue to pursue predatory fraudsters like Michael Haslam who exploit innocent people."

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