GARDENER Darren Hughes faces a bill of more than £5,000 after a County Court judgement was issued against him for work he did not finish at the home of Etchilhampton couple Jodie and James Fulford-Talbot.

Trowbridge County Court has ordered Mr Hughes to pay the couple £5,070 after it received the summons back from the Post Office marked "Gone Away".

The couple hired Mr Hughes, trading as DJ Hughes & Son, of Barford House, Devizes and whose previous address was in Small Street, Chirton, to undertake gardening and landscaping work on their garden.

They accepted a quote of £1,950 but the work was not completed and the couple hired another firm, Satellite Construction, to finish the job.

The couple, both 35, sought the £1,950 they paid Mr Hughes and £3,000 towards the £5,000 they paid Satellite plus the court fee of £120.

Mrs Fulford-Talbot said she and her husband became concerned when the work being undertaken by Mr Hughes, including fencing and building a patio, fell behind schedule.

In their claim the couple said that on May 3 Mr Hughes promised to refund their money if he did not complete the work by May 14. Mr Fulford-Talbot, an Army officer, spoke again to Mr Hughes on May 11 about their concerns and following that Mr Hughes did not return.

They said they spoke to him on May 16 and he said to visit him that evening with a letter setting out the refund they wanted, which they did but he did not answer or respond to messages left on his phones.

Mrs Fulford-Talbot, a project manager for an IT company, said: "We haven't heard from Mr Hughes since. We feel conned and a bit stupid. We are both upset that we haven't got our money back from him. We have not claimed for the full amount that we paid Satellite Construction as we didn't think that was fair, so we will be around £2,500 out of pocket if we get the £5,070 from Mr Hughes.

"Mr Hughes did a little bit of all the jobs needed to be done in our garden without finishing any of them. He dug holes for fence posts and some of them were put in.

"We wanted a ditch filled in and only some of it was filled, we were meant to have a patio built but it was like a mudbath and he half moved the shed. It was bonkers."

The Gazette rang three telephone numbers for Mr Hughes. Only on one were we able to leave a message and as we went to press we received no reply from Mr Hughes.