A CROOKED salesman ripped off two elderly homeowners, persuading them to hand over cash on false pretences which he then paid into his own bank account.

Daryl Wilkinson went back to two of his former customers after he had left Stockton-based Ash Tree Home Improvements Limited and asked them for money up front to pay for materials for work they had already agreed.

In one instance Wilkinson was so eager that he followed a 72-year-old widower in his van to the man’s bank in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, where he withdrew £3,000 supposedly towards building works at his home.

The victim, who had been married for 47 years, didn’t get the money back and said he was “devastated”.

He said Wilkinson, 31, latterly of Darlington Lane, Stockton, had befriended him, taking an interest in family photos on the wall and engaging him in conversation.

The other complainant, from the Sunderland area, transferred £2,000 into Wilkinson’s bank account, wrongly believing it was to be paid to the company for materials needed to build a conservatory.

Prosecutor Paul Newcombe told Teesside Crown Court that Wilkinson’s job was to visit potential customers in their own home in order to “seal the deal” for any work that had been agreed.

He was paid up to 15 per cent commission, less if a discount had been secured.

Wilkinson was convicted of two counts of fraud, committed in March and April last year, and failing to surrender to bail after he failed to turn up for day three of his trial.

Philip Jordan, mitigating, said it had not been a sophisticated fraud. He said the father-of-three claimed he was owed money by the company, which the court was told was legitimately trading and blameless in the affair.

Mr Jordan said Wilkinson, who subsequently begun his own business, “did not start out to cause any loss or suffering”.

Judge Stephen Ashurst said Wilkinson had “spun a lie” to the victims after becoming disgruntled with his employer who he felt was paying him less than what they should have done.

He said: “You knew that the money was not going to go to your employers, it was going into your pocket.”

The judge said that “those who offend against the elderly, particularly in their own home, must expect to go to prison”.

Wilkinson, who has a raft of previous criminal convictions, including vehicle crime, theft, criminal damage and burglary, admitted in January this year a drink driving offence and harassment.

He was given a restraining order and a 12 month community order with unpaid work, but had only completed 39 and-a-half hours of the 120 ordered.

He was jailed for a total of nine months.