A COWBOY builder has been warned he faces jail after he admitted ripping off two customers, one in South Zeal, by charging them thousands of pounds for work which was never carried out.

Darren Scott, aged 46, was already on a suspended sentence for earlier swindles when he carried out one of the frauds.

He appeared at Exeter Crown Court after being arrested on his return to Britain from Thailand, where he fled after being accused of the new offences in late 2012.

He was due to stand trial but changed his plea before a jury could be sworn in. He will now be sentenced in August.

Scott, of Gappah, near Chudleigh, admitted two counts of fraud. The first involved payments of £20,000 for work at victim Margaret Cash's home at South Zeal, between September 2010 and 2011. The second involved taking £3,600 from customer Graham Harrison in May 2012 for roofing work which was not carried out satisfactorily.

This puts him in breach of a suspended sentence passed just weeks before for defrauding an arthritic pensioner out of £20,000 by falsely claiming his wife had cancer and needed expensive treatment abroad.

Judge Phillip Wassall bailed Scott with a condition that he surrendered his passport and was monitored by an electronic curfew. He ordered a probation pre-sentence report.

He told Scott: 'I am going to grant bail, but I almost did not do so because the outcome of this case is so inevitable.'

Tom Bradnock, prosecuting, said the money taken from Mrs Cash had been through a series of transactions, including three cash withdrawals after the defendant took her to a bank.

He said Scott accepted one of the three but disputed the other two, which amounted to £6,000 and this figure was no longer included in the £20,000 which he has admitted taking from the customer.

Barry White, defending, said Scott effectively lived in Thailand with his Thai wife, who worked as a teacher, and wanted to put this case behind him so he could return to the Far East.