- Nigel Dinneen illegally obtained more than £400,000 from five people after being declared bankrupt in July 2019
- His victims included a father whose children had to sleep on the floor with no back doors or windows and a healthcare worker on the Covid frontline
- Dinneen was jailed for 12 months following Insolvency Service investigations
A bankrupt builder from Derby has been jailed after illegally obtaining more than £400,000 for home improvement projects.
Nigel Dinneen, 72, secured advance payments from five victims in the Midlands without revealing to them that he was declared bankrupt in July 2019, as he was legally required to do.
Dinneen, of Duesbury Court, Mickleover, was sentenced to 12 months in prison when he appeared at Derby Crown Court on Thursday 15 January.
‘We have lost five years of being a family’
Dinneen’s first victim, who lives in Leicester and works as a fire and security contracts manager, said that the builder was “very enthusiastic” for the contract to be signed and deposit to be paid in the summer of 2019.
However, Dinneen did not tell the victim about his bankruptcy when he took advance payments from him.
The victim said that progress soon stalled on the £40,000 extension and problems came to a head in the run-up to Christmas 2019.
He added
We have lost five years of being a family.
Our children were sleeping on the floor between building materials. We were secured at the rear of the property with a tarpaulin to keep the elements and the cold out.
We will be repaying the debt incurred to repair, rework and complete the building works until 2029. My family have missed out on evenings and weekends of activities and memories as we have been carrying out DIY to try to have a finished house.
Dinneen’s other victims
Across his five victims, Dinneen obtained credit totalling £414,594 without disclosing his bankrupt status, a legal requirement if you borrow or obtain credit of £500 or more.
A healthcare worker signed a contract with Dinneen in December 2019, paying him in advance for his garage to be demolished and replaced with a two-storey extension.
However, numerous problems soon cropped up as Dinneen carried out work at the property in the village of Kirby Muxloe in Leicestershire, with the victim having to deal with these issues at the same time he was on the Covid frontline.
The project was also causing friction with his neighbours, with overflowing skips on the front garden attracting rodents.
The victim eventually sacked Dinneen with the project incomplete.
Dinneen obtained almost £90,000 between May 2019 and September 2020 in advance payments from his third victims for a two-storey extension in Nuneaton.
The fourth victim signed a contract with Dinneen in August 2019 for an extension and bathroom conversion at his home in Loughborough, paying more than £75,000 in advance and again not knowing he was bankrupt.
His final victim paid him almost £50,000 in advance to build a large rear extension at her bungalow in Market Bosworth in December 2019.
Dinneen also committed perjury by lying to the Official Receiver, a court-appointed official who investigates bankruptcies.
Enquiries revealed that he had several bank accounts he had failed to declare to the Official Receiver following his bankruptcy, including the one where all the credit payments from his victims were paid into.
David Snasdell, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said
Nigel Dinneen ruined people’s lives, taking their savings and leaving some of them in what can only be described as unliveable conditions.
Dinneen showed a complete disregard for the law and for the victims who trusted him. We hope this prosecution provides some measure of justice for those who have suffered so greatly at his hands.
Bankruptcy rules exist to protect the public. The Insolvency Service will pursue criminal prosecution against those who break the law by obtaining credit while bankrupt.