Builder turned home into 'junkyard', jury told

A builder who is accused of defrauding customers in the West Country out of more than £2m left one woman's home looking like a "junkyard", a jury has been told.

Mark Killick, of Shoe Lane in Paulton, Somerset, allegedly charged customers for building materials and labour but failed to complete the work and kept the money.

The 56-year-old, also known as Mark Cole, denies 46 counts of fraud committed between December 2019 and November 2021.

Bristol Crown Court was told Mr Killick was paid about £93,000 for work on Sarah Brooks' home, but completed only part of what he was paid for.

Ms Brooks said Mr Killick, who introduced himself as Mark Cole, had agreed to extend her driveway and rebuild the listed orangery at her home in Portishead in December 2019. She paid a deposit of £20k upfront.

"He seemed very clever, had a lot of ideas about what you could do," she told the jury. "He had the gift of the gab, made a lot of sense and sounded plausible."

The scaffolding went up immediately but progress was slow and inefficient, she told the court, and Mr Killick blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for delays.

As the months went on, she said he continued to request further money for traders and materials that never arrived - bringing the total paid to £93,000.

He allegedly threatened to "halt all the work completely" if she did not pay up.

"We had what we thought was a contract," Ms Brooks explained. "We had sunk money into this and we needed to get it done. I had to push it forward."

Despite repeated attempts to contact Mr Killick to confirm the schedule of works, she alleges her home was left in a dangerous state of disarray for months.

She claims the temporary scaffolding over the orangery was so poorly constructed it "kept lifting up" in the wind.

The jury was shown text exchanges between the pair as she pleaded for an update.

She described feeling "desperate" and asked if Mr Killick was alive.

In one message, she described her "beautiful" home as looking like a "junkyard" and said it was "worthless" until the work was completed.

Ms Brooks claimed completion dates were "plucked out of the air to fob [her] off".

Robin Shellard, defending, suggested Ms Brooks had expanded the project by about 30%, requiring more work than was initially agreed upon - including an extended driveway and a natural stone wall.

Ms Brooks disputed the claim they had not been included in the original plans.

"It may not have been to your satisfaction, it may not have been good enough, but a considerable amount of work had been done," Mr Shellard said.

Mr Shellard added Mr Killick had paid for some materials and made payments to sub-contractors.

The trial continues.

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