Cowboy builder who defrauded couple out of £150,000 to fund lavish lifestyle jailed

A cowboy builder who left a couple without their ‘forever home’ in a £150,000 fraud has been jailed for 30 months.

Martin Ritchie, 35, conned the couple into working on their dream new bungalow in Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire.

Ritchie – who was recommended as a “superstar builder” – did little to no work on the property between May and July 2021.

Instead, Ritchie used the time and cash to fund his lifestyle, including buying a boat, new vans, shopping sprees in designer stores and hotel stays.

The couple were forced to fork out for rented accommodation while a reputable builder was instead hired for the work.

First offender Ritchie was found guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to a fraud totalling £151,260.

He was also convicted of a separate £9,202 fraud after he failed to purchase a kitchen for another customer.

Sheriff Paul Reid told Ritchie at sentencing that the custodial threshold had been passed by “some distance.”

The sheriff said: “I have read the victim impact statement, which paints a depressing picture of despair as far as your victims are concerned.

“Your behaviour was deplorable and dishonest.”

The court heard from the man, who stated that he bought the property after he fell in love with the area during his BT engineer job route.

He hired Ritchie’s company RPM to do renovation work after an associate recommended him as a “superstar builder.”

The man described Ritchie, of Motherwell, Lanarkshire, as a “big charmer” upon meeting him for the first time.

The pair agreed on a fee of £264,450, which would be paid in instalments as the work progressed.

Between May and July 2021, he handed over £151,260 of the sum to Ritchie.

However, the victim told prosecutor Darren Harty that “very little to no” work had been done in that time.

He stated on his visits to the site, he found three “young boys” lazing on their mobile phones.

In regard to Ritchie, the victim said: “This was a man I handed £150,000 to, and he rarely answered his phone.”

As time went on, the man arranged meetings with experts and a quantity surveyor to discuss the work, but Ritchie did not attend.

A report on the site deemed the value of the work carried out by Ritchie’s firm to be nil.

When asked how he felt about the ordeal, the homeowner replied: “Devastated.”

He then got visibly emotional and added: “This was going to be our forever home.”

The witness recalled watching the TV scam show ‘Don’t Get Done’ hosted by Dominic Littlewood.

The man said: “I always say don’t hand over any money – it’s the age-old rule – don’t hand over any money. I found it very hard that I did that.”

The couple hired another builder to complete the work, which took a further 12 months.

The man and his wife had to live in rented accommodation, which cost them £800 per month.

But, due to the cost, they had to move back to their home despite the ongoing work.

The court heard the couple, who are in their sixties, are still not retired and work part-time in the family’s second-hand car business.

Mr Harty put to the woman in her evidence that the couple’s dream had become a nightmare, and she replied: “A living nightmare.”

Ritchie’s partner and company secretary, Monique Nesbitt, 37, was quizzed during the trial by the fiscal depute on the firm’s bank statements.

Jurors were directed to large sums of money being transferred into the RPM bank account by the man over the time period.

The statements then showed wages being paid out as well as purchases at Selfridges, Zara, Amazon, and a hotel in St Andrews.

It was also revealed that a Bayliner 195 Discovery boat valued at £12,000 was purchased along with two new vans at the same cost.

Mr Harty stated that despite more than £150,000 coming into the account, only £394 was left on the company’s balance in August 2021.

The fiscal depute argued that despite there being evidence of some materials purchased, it did not equate to what was required for the job.

Mr Harty said: “I suggest to you the only thing RPM was used for was funding you and Mr Ritchie’s lifestyle, not buying materials.”

Ms Nesbitt replied: “No, I disagree with that.”

Ritchie told police officers in his interview that he did not benefit from the money but accepted that he “failed his customers.”

Jurors also heard that Ritchie conned another couple into paying him for a kitchen and installation between October 2020 and September 2021 at their Lenzie home.

He told the couple that he had bought the kitchen from the firm Leakers Direct.

The man later contacted Leakers about the delivery and was informed that it had not been paid for.

In his closing speech, Mr Harty said: “He took victims’ money, made promises that he had no intention of fulfilling and walked away, leaving behind not just unfinished work, but shattered dreams, financial hardship and dangerous, unsafe conditions.”

Ritchie’s victims stated outside of court after the verdict: “Justice has been done. He put us through a lot of pain in the last five years.”

Paul Mullen, defending, told the sentencing that his client “accepts that this offence caused considerable upset and harm to the victims.”