'How my home dream turned to nightmare at hands of rogue builder'
The victim of a cowboy builder, who pocketed £29,000 for a job worth no more than £5,000, today told how she has been left devastated.
Furious mother of two Affy Paul stormed: “My home was invaded by a rogue who had no intention of completing the job and every intention of taking all the money.”
The shoddy work could now cost £20,000 to put right with the victim unlikely to get any of her money back.
The 47-year-old company area manager protested to Andrew Tedstill about the poor workmanship warning she would withhold further payment unless things improved.
She said he responded by threatening to knock down the walls of her home if she did not pay up.
The shameless 40-year-old bodger then walked off the job with his wallet full of Ms Paul’s money and parts of her house in Bryan Avenue, Penn, in danger of collapse.
Yesterday Tedstill, of Green Oak Road, Codsall, was jailed for seven months at Wolverhampton Crown Court after he admitted unfair trading by recklessly breaching professional diligence between December 2, 2015 and April 7 2016.
The plan had been to extend the victim’s kitchen, convert the garage into a downstairs bathroom and utility room and landscape the garden.
The result appeared more like a bomb site with portions of the property uninhabitable.
Ms Paul was left with neither kitchen, bathroom nor working boiler. Walls were just bare brickwork.
Wires were severed while openings in internal walls had no lintel to support them and were in danger of falling down.
Supposedly secure steel beams moved in the brickwork and rotten wood was not replaced in the roof.
An expert employed by Wolverhampton City Council’s Trading Standards Department to assess the work after it took up her case concluded the finished work was worth no more than £5,000.
He said: “It is more luck than judgement that there has not been a significant impact on the premises.”
Andy Tedstill asked for a £5,000 deposit and a further £2,188 in the first month of the project to landscape the garden.
He got the money but left it littered with rubble, a partially completed wall and an abandoned door.
Ms Paul, who has lived at the address for 16 years, said: “I had my heart ripped out when I lost my mother and divorced in 2014 and wanted to have a new life for myself and my children. He took advantage of my vulnerability.
“The project was split into stages and he wanted the money for each stage up front.
"I agreed to that but he started demanding money for the next stage before finishing work on the previous one.
"He said if he did not get the money he would knock the walls of my house down.
“He was very aggressive about it, I felt intimidated.”
She concluded: “I will have to cope with the fall out for the rest of my life.”
