Cowboy builder 'destroyed homes of customers' and left…

Cowboy builder 'destroyed homes of customers' and left one family in 'financial meltdown' with £78k bill

A rogue builder who destroyed the homes of his customers and took all their savings has been sent to prison for over five years. Lee Slocombe, 40, from St Thomas, appeared in Swansea Crown Court on May 9 for sentencing after pleading guilty to defrauding seven families out of more than £147,000.

Slocombe ran his Swansea-based building company, Kamlee Builders, and was paid huge sums of money by all seven families for building work that was either unnecessary, incomplete, or finished well below standard. One family from Swansea paid out more than £78k for work, and to rectify problems caused by Slocombe. The family stated they had gone into financial meltdown as a result and had to take out several loans to pay off the bill.

Another couple paid more than £18k for work which a chartered surveyor testified would have normally cost less than £600 and taken an hour to complete. Slocombe took money from all the families, including vulnerable people, but it's the second time he's been jailed for similar offences, having been sent down for more than three and a half years for similar activities in 2015. You can get more Swansea news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.

In 2015, among his victims were Sheri Hall, 24, and James Gardner, 32, who hired Slocombe to carry out minor work at their home in Aberbeeg, Blaenau Gwent.

They paid him £18,000 but Slocombe left them without a staircase or radiators and when the pair returned to their house they found their floorboards lying in the back garden and had to negotiate a four-foot drop into rubble to get into the front door. You can see pictures of the damage to their home below, and you can read more about what happened to them here.

In one of the latest cases Slocombe has been jailed for, a concerned family member complained to Swansea Council’s Trading Standards in 2018 regarding work being carried out at a property in Morriston. They originally complained that the family had been quoted £1k for works to treat damp at their home. This work eventually rocketed to a bill of more than £60k and the property was left in a complete mess.

Other homeowners in Swansea complained that year, which prompted visits by trading standards officers who determined that work had been carried out to a substandard quality. Trading standards officers continued to investigate complaints linked to Kamlee Builders between 2018 and 2020 which led to charges being made against Slocombe.

In Crown Court on May 9, a judge sentenced Slocombe to five years and five months in prison for one count of participating in a fraudulent business. The builder was also disqualified from being a company director for 8 years and was prohibited from engaging in the course of a business directly or indirectly in any conduct whatsoever involving building, roofing, maintenance or gardening work in the UK.

David Hopkins, cabinet member for corporate services and performance in Swansea Council, welcomed the sentence and said: “The details of this case show an extremely disturbing level of dishonesty and appalling treatment towards families in Swansea, many of them who are vulnerable.

“The families who got taken in by Mr Slocombe’s dishonest behaviour have all paid a huge price financially as well as suffering stress throughout their ordeals. They believed he was acting in their interests and would carry out work honestly. We now know this was not the case and the builder did all he could to extract huge amounts of money from these families dishonestly.

“Our Trading Standards and Legal Teams have done an excellent job in bringing this case to court and ensuring no other families will suffer at the hands of this rogue builder.

Are you one of Slocombe's victims? Would you like to tell us your story? If so, please email katie.hoggan@walesonline.co.uk, or postnews@reachplc.com.