'He seemed trustworthy, his reviews were excellent - then he completely blindsided us'
A cowboy builder left families thousands of pounds out of pocket after they were enticed by glowing reviews which had actually been written by his friends and family. Three of Billee Hopkinson's victims have spoken out after the rogue trader was jailed for 20 months.
"We'd never had building work done before," Annabel said. "I suppose we were a bit naïve but he seemed trustworthy and his reviews were excellent. We thought we had done our due diligence." “They would leave early or disappear off the job. The van had broken down, or he would be asking for money for tools. It got to the point where I was saying, ‘this isn’t in line with the online reviews’, but we were constantly being told it was all okay," she said.
The work was such a poor quality, Ms Raynor’s daughter would not have been able to reach the sink or get into the shower in her wheelchair. When Katrina complained - and eventually told Hopkinson to stay away from her home, he accused her of “playing the disability card” - after pocketing £13,500 of the grant.
“We were completely blindsided. It has destroyed our trust in people and cost us thousands. My 70-year-old father-in-law has been making 50 mile round trips to help us self build. I have had to learn to lay bricks and we have been working on the project at weekends, while doing our jobs in the week.
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