Portsmouth builder ordered to pay back £1 after making £91,000 from 'shoddy' botch jobs at six homes

People who contracted builder Nicholas Hutton to carry out roofing and insulation work were instead left counting the cost of damage – with one house in Milton left with an exposed unfinished roof in rainfall.

Portsmouth Crown Court previously heard the 58-year-old, of Maxwell Road, Eastney, would ‘prey’ on his victims while running Appledore Roofing and Building Contractors.

He charged £85,496 for work – some of which was not needed, and left victims dealing with the ‘misery’ of their homes in a dangerous condition. Meanwhile he spent some of the cash on holidays.

Now a judge has ruled he made £91,029 during botched work at six homes between December 2016 and August 2018.

Hutton, who in November was given a suspended jail term, has no assets and was ordered to pay £1 within three months or face 14 days in jail.

Portsmouth City Council’s Trading Standards team can claw back more cash up to £91,000 if he comes into any money or assets.

Gerald Vernon-Jackson, council leader, said: ‘It’s really important that if people rip off residents of Portsmouth that we chase those people so that they can’t do it to other people, and that they pay back the money that they’ve made.

‘I think it’s outrageous the way in which people exploit other residents in this way and it’s very unsatisfactory that he’ll say he has no money, and can’t pay anything back because the poor victims of this are left counting the cost.

‘I’m pleased Trading Standards got him because that presumably means he won’t be able to rip off other people in the same way.

‘I’m pleased that if he does make any money he has to pay it over to his victims.’

When Hutton was handed an eight-month term suspended for two years, the judge Tim Mousley QC told him: ‘Your work was shoddy and riddled with basic errors – you took gross advantage of people’s vulnerability with costs being way out from the work that needed to be done.’

Hutton pleaded guilty to six counts of contravening professional diligence and one count of engaging in misleading commercial practice.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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