Another victim of cowboy mechanic Les Crofts has come forward to tell how he must now spend hundreds of pounds to fix a “botched job” on his truck when he trusted it would be completed to a decent standard.
Matt Parfett found Crofts’ details on ebay and took his Isuzu Grafter to him at his unit in Chatteris for a new body to be fitted.
The landscape gardener from Thetford said: “He damaged the diesel tank and also cracked the outlet metal pipe. To fix it he put a piece of blue tack around it, to try to cover up what he had done.”The van will now only travel at 45mph and Matt says it will cost him about £1,200 to undo the damage.
He said: “My van needs a Class 7 MOT and my mechanic had only just got the van through that with ease so everything was fine before it went into Crofts’ so called workshop.
“When we went to pick up the van my mechanic came with me and found fault after fault. Les got annoyed and said if your mechanic keeps on I’ll wrap a bar round his head. That’s a threat in my book.
“There’s nothing good about what he has left us with, he’s a cowboy.”
He added he has been in touch with another unhappy customer who got Les to build a trailer for two race cars.
He said: “One car was loaded on and the thing broke.”
Matt paid Crofts £1,200 - £1,000 for the work plus £200 which Crofts said was for his VAT registered business Top Notch Leisure
In the meantime, the disabled couple who waited since summer to have a camper van conversion, that is still a shell, said: “The saddest part about all of this is he relies on the fact that most people don’t have the means or indeed want to pursue him through small claims court.
“After the first story went in about our camper he sent us an invoice, dated August 2016, saying he carried out 69 hours of work on our van - yet it still looks like a shell - explain to me how that took 69 hours!”
Crofts, who pretended to be a man called Mike Smith when we visited his workshop, emailed the Cambs Times this week and said: “I have some evidence here you may (or may not) be interested to see that will prove what you are printing is unsubstantiated rubbish.
“This is the evidence you are supposed to have before you run stories in your paper persecuting people just because your reporter doesn’t like them.
“Your reporter was told before her visit to wear safety boots if she wanted to access our workshop as this is health and safety law, she refused to conform to this request.
“She was also asked not to publish my name or photograph in the paper as I am an ex Home Office employee and her total disregard for this has now given me serious concern for my personal safety.
“I would be very happy to meet you and show you this so please let me know when you can come here to do this a.s.a.p. so that you can print a retraction.
“Your failure to do this will leave me no option but to start legal proceedings against you and your papers for slander as you have printed many “facts” without ever seeking to verify these slurs but as you decided to publish them you must now take responsibility for them.”
He had an LMC Truck Bodies business sign at his Honeysome Road business when we visited on February 20. This has since been taken down.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here