Rogue trader jailed after targeting war veteran

The ringleader of a gang of rogue traders who targeted a war veteran and his sister, both in their 90s, has been jailed.

36-year-old Nadeem Yasin, who was director of the company, Galaxy Home Improvements, targeted the elderly brother and sister in March 2016.

The scam was identified thanks to the intervention of staff at Coventry's city centre branch of Coventry Building Society.

Cashiers there became suspicious after the frail siblings were escorted to the branch to withdraw almost £7,500 to pay for roofing work at their home.

The court heard the only documentation the elderly brother and sister had been given was a scrap of paper with the company name – Galaxy Home Improvements and £7,500 hand written on it.

When trading standards officers attended the Coventry Building Society branch they were able to intervene to prevent any further money being handed over.

When officers visited the elderly residents' home, they spotted several areas of concern:

• Guttering, fascia and soffits had not been replaced, despite an invoice saying they had.

• Nothing was wrong with joists that were said to be rotten and in need of replacement.

• Tiled roof work undertaken was of a very poor standard with inadequate flashing, poorly formed valleys and tiles that weren’t fixed. One tile even fell from the roof narrowly missing one of the residents.

• Further work to a corrugated plastic roof was deemed totally inadequate and leaked profusely.

• Roof insulation installed in the loft had been ripped up and piled to one side meaning a large portion of the house was uninsulated.

• A bedroom ceiling had been ‘mistakenly’ removed by the traders and the subsequent repairs carried out to a very poor standard.

• The roof was of such poor quality another contractor had to be employed to strip it and start again from scratch.

The three men involved in the scam plead guilty to offences under Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations following a trading standards investigation.

Throughout the investigation, Ahmed Barbar - also a director at Galaxy Home Improvements - pledged he would refund a £2,000 deposit paid to his company by the pensioners, but no cheque was sent.

At Warwick Crown Court, ringleader Nadeem Yasin was sentenced to nine months in jail. He was also ordered to pay compensation of £3,919 and disqualified from being a company director for five years.

36-year-old Ahmed Barbar, was sentenced to four months imprisonment, suspended for 12 months and 200 hours of unpaid work.

He was also ordered to pay compensation of £3,919, make a contribution to the council’s costs of £3,000 and disqualified from being a company director for two years.

A third man, Admadzai Mohammed Naeem, was given a community order requiring 120 hours of unpaid work.