Lancashire Police and the Trading Standards Service are celebrating a successful court result which resulted in the mastermind of a damp proofing scam being jailed.
Nigel Hudson, who ran a business purporting to carry out damp proofing work and deliberately targeting high pressure sales techniques on older and vulnerable consumers., was sent to prison for over 8 years. A number of sales representatives employed by Mr Hudson were also imprisoned.
Over the previous decade and using a variety of company names including Britannia Home Improvements, the Home Improvement Advisory Service and International Property Preservations, Nigel Hudson ran the proceedings from Portugal but was finally apprehended in Florida following an 18 month investigation conducted by Lancashire police, and involving the arrest of a number of sales staff in the UK.
Using an accommodation address in London the company operated by means of initial telesales calls targeting the elderly and vulnerable and arranging “no obligation” surveyors visits, in reality conducted by sales reps with little or no training, who used a range of questionable sales techniques including frightening consumers into signing up by running damp meters past electrical sockets and feigning electric shocks.
The companies also failed to comply with consumer protection legislation which gives consumers a 7 day cooling off period in order to allow clients cold called in their own home time to think about the deal they have been offered.
The investigation was initiated by Lancashire Police and Trading Standards following a realisation that the company had set up operations in Clitheroe, Lancs. The police took a lead role in the investigation taking the view that a major deception was being perpetrated deliberately on elderly and vulnerable people. A huge amount of cooperation took place between Trading Standards both nationally and locally, and a number of police forces across the country.
Chief Trading Standards Officer Jim Potts stated “I am delighted with this result which properly reflects the serious nature of these offences.
“It highlights how as a Service we can effectively work with the police on such matters and I cannot praise Lancashire Constabulary enough for their highly professional and determined approach in this case, which has finally seen Nigel Hudson brought to justice after years of being a thorn in the side of Trading Standards Services and the police across the Country”.
County Councillor Jean Battle, Cabinet Member for Community Planning and Partnerships said: “Thousands of consumers have lost out needlessly installing damp proofing courses which we believe in the majority if not all of the cases were entirely unnecessary, and we are pleased with this judgment which should serve as a warning that we will not tolerate such flagrant targeting of vulnerable members of society in what should be their safe territory, their homes.”
DC Richard Horton, of Lancashire Police, said: "This prosecution would not have been possible without the support and assistance given by Lancashire Trading Standards officers. Only by working in partnership, were we able to prosecute Nigel Hudson and his criminal team. I am sure that our work also helped to protect vulnerable members of society from them. I am delighted that we have brought some measure of justice for the many victims and I welcome the sentences imposed by the Court."
