Overview
- Stockton Council’s Trading Standards, which prosecuted the case, saw Scott Brian Richardson sentenced Friday at Teesside Crown Court to a four-month suspended term, 120 hours of unpaid work, and £24,000 in compensation.
- Richardson pleaded guilty to two offences under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, and the judge called his work “nothing short of a shambles.”
- He took £51,000 between March and August 2023 for a garage conversion and orangery at a Wynyard home, yet he left the first phase unfinished and never began the loft conversion.
- An independent surveyor valued the completed work at £29,209.73, which left about £21,790 overpaid, and materials the customer funded never turned up.
- His firm went insolvent after a promised £21,790 refund in May 2024, and the couple later spent about £143,000 to fix defects and finish the project, prompting the council to warn residents to seek several quotes and avoid large upfront payments.