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15th April 2023
05:44pm BST
A cowboy builder who destroyed a disabled girl's home after bullying her parents into paying him £75,000 has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.
Lee Millard left Aftab and Shazia Alimahomed in debt and their house like a building site following the botched work in 2019.
A court heard the 37-year-old gave the family a quote and said he would not charge anything on top for the extension they needed for their wheelchair-bound daughter.
They were hoping for a new kitchen, downstairs bedroom and wet room installed as well as a new ramp and patio area to give their daughter access to the garden.
But the couple were forced to fork out an extra £30,000 after Millard "destroyed" the property - leaving it with holes in the roof where rain water flooded in.
Workers also cut through cables, bricks fell in and cement was left strewn across the house in Stourbridge, West Midlands.
Millard later cut off all contact with the family and stopped replying to messages after they refused demands to make further payments.
Shocking pictures show the severity of the damage the rogue builder caused with the washroom for the disabled girl left completely wrecked.
The girl, who was disabled and incontinent, died last year after being forced to spend the last months of her life not being able to be cleaned properly.
Aftab and Shazia said their daughter had spent her final months without her "privacy and dignity" at a time they "should have been making memories."
Millard, of Bilston, West Midlands, was jailed for three and a half years after admitting fraud at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Wednesday.
After the case, Christopher King, head of trading standards at Dudley Council, said he welcomed the decision of the court to impose a "lengthy jail term".
"This is a very serious case of rogue trading against a family who needed and deserved far better," he said.
"The family were left with their home decimated and in a dangerous, hazardous state.
"Millard pocketed more than £80,000 and left the home looking like a building site, failing to deliver the new facilities the family’s daughter desperately needed.
"Not only that, he and his workers also managed to destroy the existing facilities, leaving her with nowhere to wash or suitable toilet facilities and cooped up in a small room for four months.
"The fact she died last year, having never benefitted from the work, makes this case all the more tragic and serious."
King said Millard did an "appalling job".
"The family could see things were going wrong but he strung them along, ruining their home and leaving them unable to properly care for their vulnerable daughter.
"I hope this case serves as a warning that we will not hesitate to investigate and prosecute rogue traders – and that seriously shoddy work could land them in jail."
The court heard the couple remortgaged their home and borrowed cash from family and friends for the extension.
In a victim impact statement, Shazia Alimahomed said: “It is impossible to put into words how this affected my family and beloved daughter.
"The last 18 months of her life when we should have been making memories, instead we were living in a dangerous building site and she lost her privacy and dignity."
A further hearing will be held in October to decide on exact costs and compensation.
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