Cowboy builder, 46, leaves couple thousands of pounds out of pocket after ... trends now

A cowboy builder has 'mutilated' a family home with a botched £70,000 makeover nightmare, with the couple saying 'this has ruined our lives'.

Hayley Price, 42, and David Rego, 43, wanted a dream makeover project but said it has turned into a nightmare.

They hired Leighton Walkley, 46, to build an extension on their house, a summerhouse and patio.

The couple paid Walkley up front to complete the work on their home in Caerphilly, South Wales.

But his work turned out to be 'shabby' before he deserted them to take on another job.

'It's not an exaggeration that this has ruined our lives,' they said.

The couple are now living a 'nightmare' with a summerhouse 'subject to collapse', drainage problems, rubble in their garden and unsafe steps leading to an uneven patio.

Their garden has become so hazardous that their young children Beatrix, six, and Freddie, two, can't go outside to play.

Hayley, a welfare rights advisor for cancer patients, and David, a procurement supply analyst in the steel industry, said Walkley was recommended to them.

They said: 'We thought he was trustworthy - when we met him he was pleasant.

'Something changed during the job and he abandoned us. It was a fiasco.

'He took our money, took on another job and disappeared.

'The work had been sporadic and when we contacted him to ask him when he was coming back he would make it sound as if he was doing us a favour.

'We felt like he had us over a barrel.'

'We feel so angry and frustrated that we live in a house that we now despise which has been damaged and mutilated by him.'

The devastated couple had to remortgage their house to pay Walkley and aren't able to find the cash to rectify his work.

'It's also difficult to find someone who will take on somebody's else's bad job,' they said. It's a vicious circle.'