Bogus: Cowboy builder scammed £350,000 in repairs.
A cowboy builder has been jailed for almost nine years after scamming £350,000 through bogus repairs.
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Patrick Young, 56, conned several homeowners for work valued at a fraction of the price, including many elderly or vulnerable victims, over the four-year scam.
On one occasion, Young from Doune, Stirling befriended a 79-year-old man between 2011 and 2013, insisting he needed extensive repairs to his Edinburgh townhouse.
The work, which included plastering, waterproofing and a roof replacement, saw Young collect £172,800 for repairs that should have cost £39,240.
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Young was also responsible for a massive upheaval at another pensioner's home, digging several large trenches on her lawn following a report of a damp patch on her porch.
A police probe in 2013 led to Young appearing at the High Court in Glasgow last month where he pled guilty to 13 charges including fraud and extortion.
He was remanded in custody at the time and was jailed for eight years and nine months on Friday at the High Court in Paisley.
Passing sentence judge Lord Matthews said: "For a period of four years from September 1 2009 by a series of callous frauds, by the force of your overbearing personality and that of your associates, and in one case by express threats, you amassed sums of money amounting to a gross figure of £535,917.
"Deducting the value of the work done, using the most generous figures available results in a figure of at least £350,000.
"Many of your victims were elderly, and, or vulnerable and as is recognised by Mr Robertson, there was in some cases a breach of the trust which they had reposed in you over some time."
Young was told it was "somewhat alarming" that according to his social work report he showed "no real insight" into the nature of his crimes and the judge said he could not detect any "real expression of remorse".
Between 2009 and 2013, Young ran a firm called Black Diamond Building Services which he used to target victims from West Dunbartonshire to Edinburgh and Stirlingshire.
Young also faces a further hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act next year.
His three sons - Thomas , 28, William, 26, and Michael, 21- had also faced charges of being involved in the scam, but their not guilty pleas were accepted by prosecutors.
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