Wiltshire Trading Standards received more than 20 complaints against Daniel Dyer, trading as Ashwood Home Improvements, and described him as “rogue trading on an industrial scale”.
The 32-year-old of Warminster Road, Westbury’s business was liquidated in November 2022, but left behind a wake of unsafe and unfinished properties.
The BBC reports that at Salisbury Crown Court, Dyer’s barrister said he was “genuinely sorry” and he had never intended to put his customers through this sort of ordeal.
He said Dyer had been trying to run a company but it had got “out of control”, and he also promised he would never reoffend.
But Judge Adam Feest said many people would agree with the description of Dyer as “ruthless, unscrupulous and greedy”, although he accepted that Dyer was genuinely remorseful.
The judge said: “Many have struggled to put their lives back together after the devastation you caused. The impact of your behaviour will be felt for many years to come.”
Dyer has been banned from running a company for eight years.
Customers complained about paying for work that either was not completed, was substandard or was in some cases dangerous.
One of his victims, Trudi McHugh paid Dyer £32,000 in 2021 for an extension to her Grade II-listed cottage.
He stopped work in April 2022 with the extension unfinished and part of it was still held up by wooden supports and she was advised it would be unsafe to set foot inside it or under it.
Another customer of Dyer’s, Jan Shrapnell, 68, from Trowbridge, paid Dyer £50,000 for a new extension in 2020, with the work to be completed in 10 weeks.
He began work in January 2021 but stopped working in June that year leaving the house unfinished, after Ms Shrapnell had paid him the full £50,000
Trading Standards say Mr Dyer’s rogue trading involved huge losses for customers.
Emma Carroll, Wiltshire Trading Standards Manager, said: “This is rogue trading on an industrial scale. The amount of money his victims have lost is seventy, eighty, ninety thousand pounds in some cases.
“These people have been left in financial ruin. They haven’t got the money to put things right so they are still living with this day to day.”
