A distraught daughter has hit out at cowboy tradesmen who conned her elderly mother out of £60 only weeks before she died.

Christine Maguire, a postal worker, of Clayton, Bradford, says she was sickened by the actions of two men who called at 80-year-old Doreen Firth's home in Lower Westfield Road, Heaton, and told her she needed work doing to replace slates.

Mrs Maguire, said: "It's disgusting. She had a tragic life, she'd been mugged and burgled and then this.

"It's even more upsetting because she died a couple of weeks later and she had been worried about this. I think it definitely contributed to her death.

"There are still two big gaping holes in the roof that she wanted them to fix. They haven't done anything at all.

"I've rung them four times and arranged for them to come and put it right, but they've never turned up."

The two men who called at Mrs Firth's home said they were from a firm called H&N Roofing. They left a receipt for the £60 bill with two mobile phone contact numbers and an address in Kirkstall, Leeds, on it.

Neither phone number was working when contacted by the T&A and the postcode was inaccurate. No one was at the address.

West Yorkshire Trading Standards officer Graham Hebblethwaite said: "People should never, under any circumstances, allow somebody to knock at their door and tell them they need work doing. That tactic is employed frequently and targeted at vulnerable elderly people which can be very frightening for them.''

Mr Hebblethwaite said there was no record of H&N Roofers on the Trading Standard Service's database.

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