A CONSERVATORY company boss who swindled houseowners out of more than £58,000 was today jailed for two years.

York Crown Court heard that David Barry Richardson took 44 orders in about a year to build the extensions, but only one was constructed.

At the same time he took more than £58,000 in deposits for the conservatories that were not built, said Deborah Sherwin, prosecuting.

Almost as soon as the 39-year-old, from Crambeck Village, near Malton, started up his Direct Conservatories UK business, which had a York registered address, he was making exaggerated claims that it was a national company which was one of the leading suppliers of the extensions in the UK.

In reality he and his wife, Susan, were its only employees.

Richardson's activities were exposed by the Evening Press in 2000, when we reported how customers had been left thousands of pounds out of pocket.

At the time, Richardson told the paper that the company had "always intended installing conservatories which had been ordered," and he "totally disagreed with any statements made to the contrary." He later admitted he deceived customers by inventing a bogus marketing director.

Judge Paul Hoffman said today he accepted that Richardson initially intended to build conservatories, but he did so by dishonest means to trap customers.

However, by the start of the year 2000, he was "wholly dishonest."

He was trapping trusting people into making orders there was no chance whatever of being fulfilled.

"You were not just a glib salesman. You were a callous and dishonest salesman," said the judge.

Richardson pleaded guilty to fraudulently trading between April 26, 1999 and June 20, 2000 and ten charges of making false statements between January 15, 2000 and March 11, 2000.

Miss Sherwin, prosecuting on behalf of North Yorkshire Trading Standards, said: "He seemed to have been living in cloud cuckoo land."

Richardson was disqualified from being a company director for five years.

For him, Nigel Wray said his daughter had a medical condition that caused her to collapse from time to time and Mrs Richardson worked 60 to 70 hours a week to meet family bills.

He was a nave man who could not organise a business and only one customer had lost out because Richardson had pressed clients to pay by credit card so the card company could indemnify them. Arrangements were in hand to pay the one person who had used a cheque for his deposit.

Updated: 15:21 Monday, January 28, 2002