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The Rogue Builders! by Julian Lewis |
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Last updated on
Tuesday September 21,2004 |
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Most people adopt a protective
attitude towards the vulnerable elderly, but there
is one group of ruthless con-men who see them as targets
for rich pickings. These are the cold-callers who offer
building services which no-one has requested.
As far as I know, the professional building trade has no time at all for cold-calling
as a method of generating business. Moves are now afoot to make it a criminal
offence and I have just sent in my response in favour of this to the consultation
exercise being carried out by the Dept of Trade and Industry.
In a debate in Parliament last year, I told the story of how a rogue builder
conned my own 89 year-old Father into parting with £7,500 in cash. After
the debate, the offender called me up to boast about his long career of doing
such terrible things to innocent victims over many years (while carefully still
denying that he was guilty in my Father’s case).
How had he got away with it for so long? There were three main techniques, so
far as I could work it out. The first was sometimes to pitch the sum swindled
at too low a level to make it economic to take it to court. The second was to
do a certain amount to work and then abandon the job uncompleted, with the victim’s
cash in his pocket. Apparently it is a civil but not a criminal offence to leave
work uncompleted.
However, by far the most important technique of this vile individual was carefully
to select elderly victims who would be too physically or mentally frail to testify
in court and face the inevitable cross-examination.
This is why I welcome the
fact that the Government is considering making cold-calling for property services
and repairs a criminal offence in itself. It certainly should be for anyone with
a previous criminal record and I would argue for a total ban. It is far easier
to establish whether a builder or labourer has been cold-calling than to work
out what sort of bogus commitments he may have made and subsequently broken.
Cooling-off periods, as some propose, to allow householders to think again offer
no protection to the victim who has been carefully selected because he or she
is vulnerable or suggestible. Such frail people are not sufficiently aware of
their rights or likely to realise that they are being conned until it is far
too late.
If it is a measure of a civilised society how well it protects its weakest members,
it should also be a test to see how firmly it deals with those who would steal
everything they possess.
In wishing all constituents a very Happy Christmas, may I ask you to look out
for friends and neighbours who might be vulnerable to the sort of low-life con-men
described in this article?
Dr Julian Lewis is MP for New Forest East.
His Parliamentary office is on 023
8081 4817 or visit his Website
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