A 39-year-old roofer from Morecambe was sentenced to one year in prison on 28 January 2026 for scamming elderly residents in the Lancaster and Morecambe area of Lancashire. Robert Macintyre received the 12-month jail term at Preston Crown Court following a Lancashire County Council Trading Standards investigation into cases in which he charged vulnerable people for repairs that were substandard, incomplete or never properly carried out.
The investigation was led by Lancashire County Council Trading Standards, which found Macintyre, trading as Macintyre Roofing, carried out substandard, incomplete and misdescribed roofing work and misled victims by falsely claiming qualifications and approvals. The prosecution covered works at two addresses belonging to three Morecambe residents between December 2021 and May 2024.
Local reporting and the council say one Morecambe victim, who was 78 at the time, paid £11,500 and was left with extensive water ingress after necessary work to keep the property watertight was not carried out. A married Morecambe couple (aged 76 and 77 at the time) had £1,600 worth of work judged to be of no value and in need of redoing.
Councillor Joshua Roberts, cabinet member for Rural Affairs, Environment and Communities at Lancashire County Council, said the sentence sends a clear signal that preying on the vulnerable will not be tolerated. Local reporting and the council are urging homeowners to be careful when hiring contractors and to use trusted schemes such as Lancashire’s Safe Trader Scheme and to report rogue traders via the Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline.
About this article: This story was put together with the help of AI tools and checked by a real person on our team. We're a small crew trying to cover as much of the UK as we can on a limited budget. We're getting better every day - but we're not perfect yet. If something looks off, let us know. You're part of the process.
