A Wiltshire rogue trader who used 'aggressive and misleading' tactics to persuade two elderly customers to pay for unnecessary home improvement work has been handed a suspended prison sentence and a £10,000 bill for fines and costs.

Garry Potticarry, formerly of Pye Lane, Swindon, told an 86-year-old woman, from Chippenham, that she needed to have an inspection on her attic insulation for the warranty to remain valid, which was not true.

She then paid £2,800 for the unnecessary work.

At Gloucester Crown Court on Friday, the 64-year-old, who now lives in Malaga, Spain, was also banned from being a company director for four years.

The court heard that Potticarry was director of a company called Spectrum Energy Guard when he used “misleading commercial practices” against the Chippenham woman, Ruth Shaw, who has subsequently died, and an 80-year-old diabetic Herefordshire man.

Potticarry had been convicted by magistrates in Salisbury last June of two offences of unfair trading with regard to Mrs Shaw, but did not accept the verdict and appealed against his conviction.

His appeal was due to be heard by Gloucester Crown Court at the start of last Friday's hearing but he abandoned the appeal at the last minute.

The prosecution said that in 2017, Mrs Shaw paid £5,500 to the business which then employed Potticarry for insulation in her attic. Two years later, when she was 86, Potticarry, now running his own company, phoned her claiming that the insulation needed inspecting in order or the warranty to remain valid.

This was not true. The following day, on October 30, 2019, Potticarry arrived at her home for the inspection and told her that her roof timbers were unacceptably damp and needed a spray coating.

She agreed to pay him £2,800 for that work to be done.

The former Swindon man also admitted three charges of engaging in commercial practices which were either misleading or aggressive towards the Herefordshire pensioner, Christopher Russell, in October 2016 and April 2019.

The court heard that Mr Russell said he felt “tired and worn down” by Potticary's tactics when he was selling him roof insulation and wall cladding work.

Potticary admitted telling Mr Russell that his home required a wall coating to protect the cavity wall coating, that he would get a discount if he waived his right to a cooling off period, and that he required spray foam insulation.

Prosecutor Dean Hulse, for Herefordshire Council, said "The aggravating features here are that the offences took place in Mr Russell's home and also Mr Russell's vulnerability and age.

"Mr Russell says he feels he was impeded in his decision making at the time of these offences by being tired and he was worn down."

In addition, he admitted two offences of featuring trade association logs on his business documentation when his membership of the associations had expired.

The prosecution said the two sets of offences against Mrs Shaw and Mr Russell “deliberately targeted vulnerable victims based on their age”.

At the start of Friday's hearing the judge, Recorder Richard Mawhinney, had given an indication to defence barrister Leslie Smith that the court would not impose an immediate jail term if Potticarry were to abandon his appeal and admit the charges.

In mitigation, Mr Smith said that in 2020 a friend had helped Potticarry, his wife of 23 years and their twin sons to move to Spain where one of the twins had won a scholarship to an English-speaking grammar school.

The family had a terraced three-bedroom house in a rural area of Spain and were paying school fees of £1,000 a month for the other son, said the barrister.

He told the court that Potticarry is now working for a company called My Solar House in Spain and does not do any cold calling on customers. He earns £4-5,000 a month.

Recorder Mawhinney sentenced Potticarry to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months, and told him: "I don't regard you as a threat in future to the public."

He fined Potticarry a total of £5,605 and ordered him to pay compensation of £3,395 and costs of £1,000, making a total of £10,000.

Finally, the judge disqualified Potticarry from being a company director for four years and ordered him to pay a victim services surcharge of £122.