A NORTHWICH businessman has spoken of his relief that a rogue trader who cost him more than £9,000 has been jailed.

Stephen Burgess was one of a number of Cheshire residents who fell foul of David Flaherty, who was last week locked up for three-anda-half years and made the subject of an Anti-social Behaviour Order - the first of its kind aimed at stopping him from ripping off members of the public.

Flaherty, who called himself Jak The Builder, had already served time for ripping people off but started building extensions at homes and businesses again and conned his customers.

He boasted that 'no job is too small and no distance too great'.

Among his victims was Mr Burgess, of The Willows, Wincham, who paid Flaherty £9,100 for a two-storey extension that was not completed, though Flaherty admitted deception to the tune of £3,000.

Mr Burgess said he blames himself for being duped by Flaherty but said the case shows how easy it is for disreputable workers to con members of the public.

He said: 'I am a businessman and I am gutted with myself for falling for it. He was very convincing and he seemed totally genuine, but I still blame myself for getting sucked in.

'I always thought I was pretty astute and I couldn't easily get conned. I'm no spring chicken but, equally, I am not an elderly pensioner who gets sucked in easily.

'I needed the work done pretty quickly but a number of builders I spoke to had a pretty long wait before they could get started. Flaherty said he could begin pretty much straight away - and I now realise that is a bad thing.

Mr Burgess, who runs food exporting business Burco from his home, said he had never seen such 'shoddy work'.

'It was absolutely dreadful, a nightmare - and the standard of building was atrocious.

'Flaherty would make all sorts of excuses. First he built three walls - one of which buckled badly - and I had to ask him to rebuild it. Then we found the room was actually five inches off square and he hadn't laid a concrete floor.

'I kept on having to chase him because he was disappearing for days on end at a time.'

Mr Burgess described Flaherty's work as 'a farce' and added: 'We paid him £600 for a boiler we never saw, and we were living with an open sewer for weeks.'

In the end, Mr Burgess's family shelled out more than £9,000 in a vain bid to get Flaherty to complete the work. But they had to concede defeat and get the work completed by more reputable craftsmen - the family particularly thanked Simon Walker, builder, Craig Pye, carpenter, Hugh Bennett, electrics, Northwich Glass and everyone else who has helped out in anyway. In total, he estimates the work cost in the region of £30,000.