Gardening fraudsters jailed after swindling £36k from 'fearful' pensioner

The scam began after the victim was approached at his home with an offer to trim his hedges.

The rogue traders then demanded £1,600 for their negligible work and turned up at the house repeatedly over the next few days to aggressively coerce the victim to fork out more cash for jobs around the garden.

The gang repeatedly lied to the victim, telling him that his trees were diseased and needed to be chopped down.

Five fully grown trees were unnecessarily felled, while a sycamore was cut back from 60 feet to just 15, and a conifer was reduced to half its height.

After the shoddy work was completed, the victim paid £36,600 in cash and cheque payments to the group.

An investigation was subsequently carried out by Dorset Council's Trading Standards department, who found the man had been charged 10 times more than he should have been.

Authorities uncovered the money had been laundered through numerous bank accounts before identifying Coker and Cochrane as the main culprits.

Investigators found that Frigot had deposited a £25,000 cheque from the victim into his bank account before dishing out the spoils to Coker and Cochrane via Barney.

Coker and Cochrane were identified by the victim during an identity parade.

Judge Fuller KC said Barney had "turned a blind eye" to the source of the proceeds and had knowingly “laundered the money for financial gain”.

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The judge labelled Coker a seasoned offender before jailing him for six years and seven months.

Cochrane was given a prison term of three years and seven months, while Barney received a 12-month suspended sentence.

Frigot previously admitted the offence at Poole Magistrates’ Court and was ordered to pay £1,500 in compensation before being slapped with a 12-week jail term suspended for a year.

The victim told Bournemouth Crown Court: “It has been two years since the men targeted me, and I still remember those two weeks very well, and parts of it still haunt me.

“The actions of Daniel Coker, Scott Cochrane and Aaron Frigot have had a distinct impact on my quality of life.

“These men left my garden in a terrible mess. I am still concerned about the state of it today.

“Every morning when I wake up, I think of what these men did and just hope that nothing similar ever happens to me or anyone like me again, and I am fearful of being targeted again.”

Dorset Council’s Cabinet Member for Health and Housing Gill Taylor warned the public to “never agree to work from unexpected doorstep callers".