Fundraiser set up for mum from Coxheath, near Maidstone, after 'rogue builder' took £60k and didn't finish job
13:31, 31 December 2019
updated: 18:18, 31 December 2019
A fundraising page has been set up for a widow who fell victim to a "rogue builder".
Shelley Weeks, from Coxheath, paid Christopher Hook, of Trigon Property Care, thousands of pounds from her husband's pension fund for work on her home that was never completed.
She spent five years deciding how best to invest the lump sum she received when her son's father, Wayne, died from leukaemia aged just 33 and their child was 18 months old.
The 43-year-old opted to spend the money on an extension to her home in Duke of York Way and was left with half a brick wall and a garden that looked like a building site with very little room for her son, now eight, to play in.
To help her, Zoë Sindrey, her sister, has set up a Go Fund Me page.
The family has opted to give 50% of the £1,000 target to the charity Blood Cancer UK, which is close to the mother of one's heart.
She donates to the organisation every Christmas in Wayne's memory and 10% of profits from her crafts business - The Beauty is in the Detail - goes towards supporting its work.
The other half will help restart work on her house which she paid Mr Hook more than £60,000 to complete in 2018.
Shelley thinks it is unlikely she will ever receive the money Mr Hook owes her, having exhausted all her legal options.
In a bid to stop this happening to anyone else, she has taken to Facebook to share her story and her post has been shared more than 44,000 times.
Mr Hook, of Primrose Drive, Ditton, has several unsettled county court judgements (CCJ) in his name to a total of more than £85,000.
He declined to comment when contacted by KentOnline.
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