ROGUE traders who conned pensioners out of more than £800,000 will have to pay back less than ten per cent of their ill-gotten gains.

Scott Jackson and Mark Shepherd were jailed for seven years after targeting an elderly academic and a dementia sufferer in Oxford during the three year scam.

Yesterday prosecutors and defence lawyers struck a deal at Oxford Crown Court which will see Shepherd pay back £50,000 and Jackson £25,000, plus his £5,000 gold watch to the victims.

Prosecutor Peter Coombe told the proceeds of crime hearing that Shepherd, 43, had benefited to the tune of £600,000 from the scam, with Jackson, 41, receiving £200,000. He said prosecutors wanted to get at least some of the money back for the victims as soon as possible.

He said: “Both men have said in replies to the Crown that they have no funds.”

Juries in both of the men’s trials heard how the pair had befriended their victims while the scams were going on.

In March 2004, the two men told 85-year-old dementia sufferer Mary Turpin one of her chimneys was tilting and some tiles needed replacing at her North Oxford home.

Jackson, of Willow Street, Leicester, and Shepherd, of The Beeches Caravan Site, Chipping Norton, repeatedly told the former Oxford High School teacher that the house needed work doing to it.

Over 15 months she paid them a total of £364,906 for work which should have cost just £30,000.

The following year, the conmen targeted 81-year-old retired Oxford University academic Dr Francis Marriott, who lived in Botley.

Dr Marriott forked out £506,880 for building work which was later assessed as being worth no more than £55,000.

Last May Shepherd was jailed for four-and-a-half years after admitting fraud, obtaining property by deception, two charges of obtaining money transfer by deception, and attempting to obtain property by deception between March 2004 and November 2008.

Jackson received a two-and-a-half year sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of obtaining money transfer by deception and one charge of attempting to obtain property by deception.

Judge Patrick Eccles, who presided over both trials, yesterday agreed to the repayment package and set a date in December to see how much had been returned.

If the two victims want to try to retrieve any more of their money, they will have to go through the civil courts.

Last night campaign group Age UK urged pensioners to be wary of cowboy builders.

Rachelle Kennedy, from Age UK Oxfordshire, said: “Our advice to older people would be to not be pressured into making any payments or signing any documents until you have had a chance to think about things, or discuss it with family or friends.

“Don’t let yourself be rushed and don’t be afraid to ask a salesperson to leave.”

Age UK runs an online database of ‘trusted traders’ who have been vetted at aubd.co.uk