'Eye-watering' £1.25m fraud leads to prison

ONE of Britain's worst rogue builders has been jailed after fleecing dozens of customers out of more than £1.25 million.

- TOM BEVAN

Mark Killick, who was known to his customers as Marc Cole, dishonestly took payments from customers and then spent it on himself - travelling the world in luxury and funding his gambling.

Footage captured the moment justice finally caught up with the serial fraudster, from Paulton, Somerset.

Killick, 56, was given a 14-year prison sentence on Monday.

It is estimated the value of the work not done by Killick across his 37 victims was approximately £1,270,000. They spent a total of £1,473,191 with the company.

It was only when Killick received more than 100 complaints that he was subsequently charged with 46 offences of fraud by false representation between 2019 and 2021 - worth the equivalent of a "lottery win", his trial was told.

The 14-week trial at Bristol Crown Court found him guilty of 37 counts and he was remanded in custody ahead of his sentencing on Monday.

Sentencing him at Bristol Crown Court, Judge Moira Macmillan told him he had caused "serious and ongoing" harm to his victims, leaving their homes in a "truly shocking" state.

Killick will be made subject to a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO) and will also be subject to a 15-year order disqualifying him from being a company director.

Among his victims was Stephen Gledhill from Bristol, who told the BBC he had paid the fraudster £18,000 in advance for a new kitchen. He said after the case: "I just feel really shocked that he could go through with something like that, telling multiple lies to so many people."

Speaking after the case, police also described Killick's offending as "fraud on an eye-watering scale."

The trial heard how Killick would request customers pay large sums of money upfront to enable him to pay for orders or materials.