Lawn And Order

A landscape gardener was handed a jail sentence after charging a frail pensioner a staggering £42,000 for a piece of Astroturf.

Michael Gorman attempted to collect more than £40,000 in earnings from the artificial grass, according to police probing his activities.

Over several months, Gorman won the trust of the elderly Roy Wilcox, who he convinced to have gardening chores done at his house—a service for which the landscaper would later overcharge by as much as tens of thousands of pounds.

The 47-year-old charged his elderly client an eye-watering £42,000 for the installation of artificial grass in his garden – when the work was worth less than £2,000.

A judge was informed that Gorman had approached the defendant in November 2021 and that the retiree had been defrauded over many months, from November 2021 to April 2022.

The judge was informed by prosecutor Amber Athill that Mr Wilcox was charged £12,500 by Gorman, of Star Hill, Hook, Hampshire, for the concrete paving of his garden at Caversham, which is close to Reading.

An expert later calculated Gorman’s work was worth £4,068 – meaning he had overcharged the pensioner by over £8,000.

On April 8, 2022, Mr Wilcox wrote the defendant a cheque for £500 which was the deposit for the installation of artificial grass.

The judge was informed that Gorman had put down a £2,300 price for the project in his notebook, but that quote had never been shared with Mr Wilcox.

Gorman installed the artificial grass in Mr Wilcox’s garden on April 19, 2022 – and told the elderly man he was owed £42,000 for his work.

Ms Athill, prosecuting on behalf of Reading Borough Council, said: ‘Although Mr Wilcox thought the price was steep, he trusted the defendant and wrote out a cheque for the full amount.’

An expert later calculated the installation of the artificial grass was only worth £1,880.70 – meaning Gorman had knowingly overcharged the elderly pensioner by some £40,000.

Gorman never offered the victim a receipt or any indication as to what the cost would be.

A statement from the since-deceased Mr Wilcox was read out in court.

He said: ‘I wanted it done and thought I was dealing with a reputable builder.

‘I trusted he would give me a fair price as I did not know the going rate for the work.

‘I did not know or have any way to check whether the cost was reasonable or not, so I trusted him and paid it.’

The intended loss reached over £49,000 whilst the actual loss to the victim was £8,932 after Mr Wilcox’s bank intervened and stopped the payment.

This evil person was ready to give his victim a horrific few years of life, which had to have given him excessive tension and anxiety.

This man did not receive enough jail time which allows people to take advantage of the vulnerable and an automatic minimum of 5 years in prison without parole. Unfortunately, our prisons are full up to the brim, and we seriously need a breakdown of who needs to be in them and who could be paroled early. No room now for the bad ones and they know it! But then there’s always a lawyer on hand to turn a blind eye to conscience and to twist the truth for a fee.

People who take advantage of the goodwill of others are especially unpleasant, and this case is made much worse by the fact that the evil man carefully selected his victim over time, demonstrating his cold-bloodedness and lack of concern for the psychological and financial toll that his actions would exact on his gullible target.