How the disgusting mess left by a cowboy plumber left my wife in tears

Retired Peter Hanson, from Stafford, was in desperate need for a trusted tradesman when he called Plumbtech on April 29, 2014. Inches of water covered his home's ground floor because of a leaking stop tap. Like countless other people, he grabbed the Yellow Pages, searched for a tradesman near him for a quick response. What he got was a conman.

Much later than expected, inept Patrick Thawe arrived from Handsworth, Birmingham, unequipped to do the job.

He didn't have a stop tap – a basic part for any emergency plumber's tool kit – and had to go out, while being paid, to collect one from a DIY shop. Then he fixed it half way up Mr Hanson's dining room wall.

In the end Mr Hanson, who once suffered three heart attacks in eight days, carried out some of the work himself - and was charged £992.80. When part of the work was fixed by an honest plumber months later, Mr Hanson was charged just £25. He gave that honest plumber an extra £15 as a token of his appreciation.

The couple paid Thawe, aged 45, with some of the £500 which Mr Hanson's wife Rosemary had been given as a bonus for completing 15 years at work. The rest was paid by Mr Hanson on his card.

Mr Hanson said: "The wife is very nervous and she was on the sofa with her feet up because the water had come up throughout the house. She said: 'pay him, pay him, let's get rid of him.'

"All he actually did was fit a stop tap. My advice to people is to twist the stop tap at least twice a year. Mine was solid so I had to turn on each tap on throughout the house to cut the flow down."

Mr Hanson said of Thawe: "He was intimidating. The wife was in tears all the time he was here. He came in and looked at the job and he had not got the tools or the spares to do the job."

Thawe was part of a four-man team, all Birmingham based, which preyed on vulnerable people, charging extortionate amounts for run of the mill plumbing jobs. One victim was charged £5,642 for unblocking a toilet. Another was an 86-year-old woman from Stafford who had been assured she would be paying a fair price. She was charged six times the going rate. She paid £605 for a job to unblock her toilet when an expert estimated the work to have been worth just £108.

Thawe, of Little Park, Birmingham, was jailed for 20 months at Stafford Crown Court last Thursday. Ringleader Duane Linton, aged 33, of Wood Lane, Birmingham, set up the lines with area codes which purported to be based in certain areas but were directed to his mobile phone. He was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail.

Another two men involved with the fraud, Peter Hawketts, aged 55, of Vardon Way, Birmingham, and Otis Wray, aged 45, of Birdbrook Road, Birmingham, were jailed for 16 months and nine months respectively.