Cowboy trader who preyed on the elderly jailed

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A COWBOY paver has been jailed for bullying two vulnerable elderly clients into spending thousands of pounds on new driveways.

James Doran was caught when a quick witted bank manager called the police after an 89-year-old customer came in to ask for a loan to pay the 6,500 cost of the shoddy work.

He went on to prey on an 87-year-old widow who suffered from dementia and did not know what she was doing when she signed a contract for 2,900.

Doran used three false names and three different company names, each with a different bogus address. His two victims lived in Plympton and Exeter and he used addresses in Marsh Barton and Launceston to throw investigators off his track.

He altered the dates on his agreements to make it look as if they had been signed days earlier, thereby getting round a law which gave customers seven days to change their minds.

His companies were called South West Patios and Drives, Abbey Paving, and Town and Country Driveways and operated all over Devon.

At the time he carried out his shoddy work he was already subject to a suspended sentence for similar consumer offences in Suffolk, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Doran and his sidekick Patrick Collins were eventually arrested outside the police headquarters building in Exeter when the family of the dementia sufferer kicked them off the job and complained to trading standards officers.

Doran, aged 29, of Leighton Buzzard, and Connors, aged 24, of Hatfield, admitted a total of nine counts of fraud or misleading business practices. Doran was jailed for 30 months and Connors for 18 months, suspended for two years.

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Cowboy trader who preyed on the elderly jailed