麻豆社

A builder who left a huge hole in one family鈥檚 garden after being paid nearly 拢17,000 for an extension has been lying to customers about his name..

Sam and Laura Hulland, from Cardiff, decided to get their new house extended ready for their third child. 听They thought they'd found the perfect builder running a business called Cardiff Construction.

Sam said:听 鈥淗e introduced himself as Andrew Hansel, very chatty, seemed very friendly, and said everything that I kind of wanted to hear.鈥�

The couple paid half the price of the extension up front, 听and work began late in June. An old garage was removed and the garden dug up ready for the new foundations. 听But then Cardiff Construction hit a big problem. A sewer pipe in the garden got broken, and they quoted Sam a huge sum to fix it.

Sam said: 鈥淚t was going to cost me 拢2300 to re-route the sewer up my garden and across under next door's patio.鈥�

Instead, Sam found an approved sewer contractor who did the job for 拢500 without having to dig up their neighbour's garden. Unsurprisingly, the couple had lost confidence in their builder, who they say then pulled his workers off the site, claiming the new pipework wasn't up to scratch.听 It鈥檚 left behind huge mounds of rubble and a big hole in their garden. 听听

Sam said: 鈥淚t's kind of heart-breaking really. You feel so cheated. I've asked him, 鈥榃ell can I have an account for the 16 odd thousand that we've paid him and a breakdown of where those costs, where that money has gone.鈥�

Sam and Laura aren't the only unhappy customers. Chris Nevison's mum Marian paid the same builder 拢16,000 for work in her home in Newport after a water leak.听 The job took far longer than they expected. At one point, 听the builder claimed he couldn鈥檛 work because his mother had just died 鈥� except he was actually at Sam and Laura鈥檚 house that day.

Chris said: 鈥淚t's absolutely despicable to turn round and say my mum has died because that's going to shock anyone.鈥�

Cardiff Construction is supposedly run by a man called Andrew Hansel, but it turns out that is also a lie. The builder had stolen another man's name. His actual name is Damon Owens. He used to share a house with the real Andrew Hansel until they fell out a couple of years ago.

Andrew had been ill for years with cancer and heart problems. He died in June of this year, at exactly the same time Damon Owens was using his name to get work on Sam Hulland's home.听 X-Ray broke the news of the deception to his widow, Barbara Hansel.

She said: 鈥淚t's bad, really bad. I didn't know he could use Andrew to this extent...even after his death.鈥�

The impact of his deception on his customers has also been huge.

Sam Hulland said: 鈥淚 felt quite sick. I had just lost all this money, basically got a house that you can鈥檛 live in, I now find out that he has completely lied to my face throughout the whole time.鈥�

This isn鈥檛 the first time Damon Owens has been in trouble. Three years ago Torfaen Trading Standards prosecuted his plumbing business for claiming to be gas-safe registered when it wasn't.听

X-Ray contacted Damon Owens, but he refused to comment. He said any unhappy customers could contact him to complain or take him to court.

听

A man with a severe form of autism is calling for more awareness of the condition on public transport after a guard refused to let him board a train.

Andrew Edwards, 32, from Wrexham, travelled to Lord's cricket ground in London with his nephew on the train.

But he said he was left distressed as he tried to get home after a "rude" guard did not help him with his ticket and the train left without him.

Virgin Trains said it would "learn key lessons" from the incident.

Mr Edwards explained that his autism can leave him easily stressed and he has obsessional behaviours, which can "lead to meltdowns".

One of his passions is cricket and when he decided to travel to Lord's to watch England v South Africa in July, his 21-year-old nephew, Louis Beckley, agreed to go with him to act as a carer.

The pair bought train tickets in advance in the form of M-tickets - tickets on a mobile phone - with Mr Edwards admitting: "Planning is very important, because with autism you have to plan. I don't like the unknown."

They said the journey from Chester to London went well - but their return did not go so smoothly, despite arriving to Euston station an hour and a half early.

When they tried to board their train, they handed Mr Edwards' phone to the Virgin Trains guard, with their journey details displayed on the screen.

However, they said the guard was "very rude and unhelpful", insisting he could not see a valid barcode on the M-ticket.

Andrew explained that he had autism and asked for extra assistance to activate the ticket, but the guard refused to help.

Mr Beckley said: "Uncle Andrew was very stressed, inconsolable once he realised that they weren't going to let us on the train."

Mr Edwards, who lives in Gwersyllt, added: "I said to the guard that was rude to us, 'I want to go home, I want to get home and see my mum'."

The pair rushed to the ticket office where they were given help to activate the ticket on the phone. But, having missed their train, they then had to pay 拢110 for new tickets.

Mr Edwards said he was not given the respect, dignity and support that train companies are supposed to give to disabled passengers.

"There's loads of people with autism out there and the thing is, it's more understood in a lot of quarters than it's ever been, but there's so much further to go," he added.

Virgin Trains said it "regretted to learn" about Mr Edwards' experience, adding it would "learn some key lessons" so that other passengers do not have the same experience.

The company offered the pair a full refund and two first class tickets for a future journey.