A boss who defrauded elderly people across Dorset to fund a lavish lifestyle has been jailed for three years after a prosecution by trading standards.

Adam Craig Roberts pleaded guilty to fraudulently misleading people across the south of England to encourage them to buy home insulation. He was sentenced at Guildford Crown Court on Friday June 28.

Roberts ran Eco Energy Advice Limited in Burlington House, Bournemouth despite having already been disqualified from being a company director, and was the main financial beneficiary. Expensive items found in his home during the investigation included an Aston Martin.

Residents in counties including Dorset, Surrey, Hampshire and Devon were cold-called by sales staff offering a no-obligation visit from a surveyor to look at their existing home insulation. But it was sales staff who actually visited and inspected the properties.

After the inspection, residents were told that their usually adequate insulation was dangerous or out of date and needed replacing. They would then be subjected to heavy handed sales techniques with generous ‘discounts’ promised if they signed up there and then. Sales staff were heavily incentivised to maximise the price, resulting in some people being charged up to £100 per square metre for replacement insulation– four times more than a reputable company would have charged. Roberts also forced low prices on the sub-contractors who carried out the work to maximise his profits.

An 83-year-old man was charged £10,300 for work worth less than £5,000 and an 89-year-old woman with memory problems was conned out of thousands of pounds. She could not recall what she had paid for.

The inquiry was carried out by Surrey County Council’s trading standards department and a spokesman said: “This is a deserved sentence for Adam Craig Roberts who used money conned from vulnerable people to fund his extravagant life.

“A reputable company will never ask you to agree to works straight away.”

If you, or anyone you know, has been subjected to heavy handed sales please report them to trading standards so we can investigate and take action.”