Cowboy sent down
Bristol Crown Court has slapped a high-profile “cowboy builder” with a 14-year jail sentence for defrauding 37 clients out of more than £1.25m ($1.6m).
Mark Killick, 56, from North East Somerset failed to finish work for multiple customers between 2019 and 2021 despite many paying him “tens of thousands of pounds up front.”
sold his clients “a housing redevelopment dream.”
The Daily Mail on Wednesday cited Detective Sergeant Louise Sinclair stating after the case that the builder sold his clients “a housing redevelopment dream.”
DS Sinclair said Killick was paying himself commission and that some of the money his customers gave him in the belief it would fund their projects was instead going into his own pocket “and being used on hotel stays and gambling.”
Dreams built on sand
Sentencing Killick, Judge Moira Macmillan told the felon he had caused “serious and ongoing” harm to his victims and left their homes in “truly shocking” condition.
Judge Macmillan’s verdict makes it the fourth time since 2008 that the builder has been found guilty of fraud. This time, however, the judge found Killick guilty of 37 counts of fraud.
According to the BBC, during his five-month trial the prosecution focused on Killick’s “spending on luxury goods, including a £25,000 ($33,800) Rolex watch he claimed was an asset for the failing business.”
paid the rogue builder £18k up front for a new kitchen
Multiple victims also testified against Killick telling how their homes had been ruined by his unfinished work, including Stephen Gledhill from Bristol. Gledhill paid the rogue builder £18,000 ($24,300) up front for a new kitchen, including units that were never ordered.
“I just feel really shocked that he could go through with something like that” stated the victim in his testimony.
Judge MacMillan told Bristol Crown Court that the defendant’s claim he would have finished the work “does not bear up to scrutiny when you consider the lies he had already spun to customers and the fact the money he’d been paid for those jobs had already been spent.”
Litany of lies
“He chose to lie time and time again, putting pressure on customers to hand over large sums of cash,” the judge added in sentencing.
DS Sinclair said Killick left his victims “with a nightmare and thousands of pounds out of pocket.”
“It was fraud on an eye-watering scale” said the Detective Sergeant, adding Killick “is a serial fraudster.”
