A cowboy builder from Kingsteignton who swindled elderly clients out of £50,000 has been ordered to repay just £134.02.
Darren Scott targeted vulnerable pensioners who he overcharged or fleeced by taking money in advance for work he never carried out.
He was caught after an Age Concern helper spotted large withdrawals from the bank account of an 85-year-old dementia sufferer from north Devon.
He took £20,000 from the pensioner from South Zeal, near Okehampton, £3,600 from a customer in Topsham, and used the money to flee to Thailand.
Scott, aged 46, of Hele Road, Kingsteignton, is now serving a 30-month sentence imposed last August after he admitted five frauds and one count of money laundering.
He was brought back to Exeter Crown Court under the Proceeds of Crime Act but Judge Graham Cottle was told Scott’s only assets are a bank account containing just £134.02.
The Judge ruled that Scott’s benefit from crime amounted to £50,536.77 but that the available amount was just the £134.02. He ordered him to pay the money within six months or spend another week in jail.
Tom Bradnock, prosecuting, said Scott has already signed a disclaimer which will allow for the transfer of the money.
During the case last August the court heard Scott was a serial fraudster who went on the run after swindling £20,000 from a 78-year-old man in Chudleigh by claiming he needed the money to buy his wife cancer treatment. It was a total lie.
He went on to defraud a frail spinster from South Zeal out of another £20,000 by overcharging her for minor works on the porch of her cottage.
He was caught when an Age Concern volunteer noticed the large payments and alerted trading standards officers.
Scott also took a £3,600 deposit from a customer in Topsham for roofing work which he never carried out and fiddled £3,725.21 by claiming sickness benefit when he was actually sunning himself in Thailand.
Barry White, mitigating, said Scott consented to the confiscation order.
He told the previous hearing that Scott turned to fraud when his building business was failing, his marriage was breaking up, and he was struggling to work because of injury.