Ref. 31050-54THE ex-wife of a rogue builder, who faces jail for cheating two of his customers, says she has been left deep in debt and on the breadline.

Betty Bridges found herself being chased by creditors after Salvation Army member Brian Timbrell left the home he once shared with her in Walcot.

But like his other victims, she has been left out of pocket to the tune of thousands of pounds.

"He has left me in debt all over the place," Mrs Bridges, 73, told the Advertiser after Timbrell was convicted at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday of two counts of obtaining property by deception.

The couple were married for six years, but she is in the process of divorcing him on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour.

Mrs Bridges, who was a widow when she met Timbrell, said she invested much of her savings and they took out three loans totalling £15,000 in both of their names when he was setting up his business.

"I believed the loans were to help him do the job. He needed tools and materials," she said.

"I was married to the bloke, I believed him. I was a sucker."

The loans were secured on the house she owned and now she is struggling to pay them out of her meagre benefits and pension.

Before their marriage broke up in November last year she said she never saw any of the large amounts of money that were supposed to have been coming in from the business. All she had was her housekeeping.

It was only when he left that the extent of his deception began to be revealed.

But even then, she had no idea he would be appearing in court for conning two households out of £6,500.

Creditors came looking for Timbrell and she had to explain she knew nothing about his business dealings.

And to make matters worse, as well as conning customers, he had bodged jobs at home.

"He was putting in a false floor for me because the floorboards were very uneven and he put a nail through a water pipe. Part of the ceiling fell down into the passage below," said Mrs Bridges.

He didn't repair it properly and now she doesn't have the money to have the work done.

She said he used to have a large and very expensive model railway set. When he installed it in a bedroom he damaged the carpet. The models were taken by debt collectors, but she said she couldn't afford to replace the carpet.

When he left she had no idea where he had gone, although he was later tracked down to a sheltered housing complex in Trinity Close, Park South.

"He has never come back to ask if I was managing OK," she said.

"I could have been left homeless and he would never have cared two hoots. It hurts so much.

"I just want him to say he doesn't live here any more and I have got nothing to do with him."

Although she has had to consider selling her home in Walcot and is unable to pay her bills in full, she is determined to pull through.

"My son and my daughter have been very good to me," she added.

Timbrell, 64, did not respond when approached by the Advertiser for a comment.

He is due to reappear at Oxford Crown Court for sentencing on July 16 and has been warned by Judge Anthony King that he could be jailed after it was revealed he had previous convictions for "almost identical" offences back in 1973.

Tina Clarke