A crooked builder turned a pensioner’s new home into “a death trap” and a state of near collapse after conning her out of £30,000. Aaron Cummings left the 70-year-old woman’s property with live wiring exposed and poisonous fumes leaking from a boiler as he carried out renovations.
£80,000 paid for unfinished work
Cummings, 46, was paid more than £80,000 by the elderly woman after talking her into employing his company to carry out work on the home and build an extension. But after hiring a series of subcontractors, he repeatedly failed to complete the work to a satisfactory standard, and the homeowner was eventually forced to report him to the police.
He pleaded guilty to an amended charge of fraudulently obtaining £30,000 from a woman between February 2019 and January 2021 when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Tuesday, September 1. Prosecutors agreed to reduce the sum on the indictment from £82,600 after agreeing Cummings had carried out around 70 per cent of the work he was employed to do.
Home left with exposed wiring and rat infestation
Fiscal depute Cheryl Porter told the court the pensioner was 70 at the time and had bought the property in the south of the capital as she was downsizing from her original family home. Cummings, of Loanhead, Midlothian, had cold called looking for work, and after agreeing a quote of £65,000 the woman paid a deposit of £8,000 to the tradesman in 2019.
The court heard Cummings left the property with live electrical wiring exposed and fumes from the boiler leaking into the extension. During renovations, a second tradesman inspected the house and said the work had left the roof with “a potential for collapse” that could have led to a fatality. The fiscal added the customer was worried about security and inclement weather due to no doors and windows, and she suffered “a rat infestation” due to the shoddy work.
Court hears of 'death trap' and free repairs
Another tradesman who surveyed the work described the house as “a death trap after death trap”. Eventually a family friend took over running the construction project and posted an appeal on LinkedIn for local tradesmen to step in. Several businesses answered the call and agreed to carry out necessary repairs free of charge.
Sheriff Douglas Keir described the fraud as “a shameful situation” and deferred sentence for preparation of reports to later this month. He warned the builder: “Your bail will be continued but obviously, withstanding the nature of the charges, all options are open the court.”
Solicitor advocate Kris Gilmartin said his client has a previous conviction for a similar offence and had used subcontractors. Mr Gilmartin said: “Mr Cummings subcontracted a significant amount of the work to people who very clearly were not sufficiently qualified to carry out that work.” He said he would reserve full mitigation for the reports and to allow Cummings “time to amass an amount of money to offer to the court in compensation”.
