Rogue roofer strikes again by charging newlyweds £10,900 to wreck their Wolverhampton home

Christopher Wood, who has previously been convicted for scamming pensioners through his shoddy building work, returned to his old ways when he promised a Tettenhall couple he could replace their new home's roof in the summer of 2021.

However, after a litany of broken promises, repeated demands for cash, leaving the job unfinished and losing a glazing firm's 25-year guarantee, Wood was prosecuted by Wolverhampton Council's trading standards team.

Wood even went to lengths of pretending to have a legal department in his company which tried to force his customers to drop their complaints, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

The couple hired Wood's company Summit Roofing Solutions to replace the roof at their new Aldersley Avenue home after one of them had recovered from cancer.

He said: "We have lost all trust in tradesmen and find it hard to do anything like this again. He caused my wife and I massive amounts of stress and worry.

"He left me in a position where I had to scale ladders, had to take time off work, and left me extremely frustrated. I want to thank Wolverhampton Trading Standards for ensuring he has been prosecuted."

The couple explained after several years of illness, they decided to marry, went on a dream holiday and then bought a house together, but due to Wood ended up with a huge financial and emotional strain.

Wood, of Clifton Street, Bilston, pleaded guilty to three offences, failure to carry out roofing work to standard, misleading commercial practice by demanding payments ahead of agreed schedule and failing to rectify damage caused, at Wolverhampton Magistrates Court but was sentenced at Crown Court due his previous convictions.

The 30-year-old served a sentence for perverting the course of justice after falsifying invoices when investigators from Sandwell Council asked him to present them in 2019.

In mitigation Benjamin Close, defending, argued sending Wood back to jail would be counter-productive as he needed to work to pay his victims back.

And he had two children, with two different women, to provide for as well as keeping men employed.

He said: "He is currently working on a £273,000 contract with Jaguar which employs six people including sub-contractors, three people rely on him for work.

"All that he has built up would be lost if there was a custodial sentence. The prison environment was not one which he expected to find himself in, and became a victim himself in there."

He added: "His company Summit also sponsors a local children's football team, he does not hide away in the shadows, he is a generous member of society. He knows he acted stupidly, falsifying invoices when asked for them."

Judge John Butterfield lambasted Wood's work in the roofing industry and how he dealt with the couple.

"The work you did was shoddy. Individual tasks were done badly, more than one item of avoidable damage was sustained showing carelessness and/or the lack of skills to do it adequately.

"Poor excuses were supplied, like the weather was too hot to work.

"You demanded an early payment under an 'interim invoice' as it was phrased, the couple felt they had to pay to keep the project on track.

"Your behaviour became so difficult they feared to raise the problems you were causing and the nightmare you were putting them through.

"You were unhelpful and obstructive during their attempts to seek redress. When a formal demand of payment was made you created responses which purported from the legal department of your company, there is no such department, you were engaging in attempts to distract and intimidate them.

"A chartered surveyor found when the cost of remedial work was taken in your entire engagement in the project was only worth around £4,500 as against that you obtained from them £10,920.

"The couple had to go through huge and stress due to you, and they were left with three quarters of a roof."

He added: "You have previously been found guilty of similar offences, which goes back to work you did in 2016."

Sentencing Wood, the judge said: "It is a difficult balance - immediate imprisonment, coupled with immediate disqualification of directorship, would protect future victims but that would extinguish the possibility of compensating existing ones.

"Not finding this easy, which emphasises how close you have come to immediate imprisonment, I have been persuaded your eight month sentence can be suspended for 18 months which should protect any future victims. You will have to undertake 120 hours of unpaid work.

"You have to pay £7,100 compensation and £7,000 costs, it seems to me there is enough money sloshing about you could get rid of both financial obligations quicker than than £600 a month agreed."