A building expert poured scorn over suggestions that a century-old house was in need of ‘urgent’ or ‘essential’ repairs.

Charles Leigh-Dugmore was asked to examine the 1920s detached home in Wytham Street, Oxford, by the council’s trading standards team after its elderly homeowner allegedly came under pressure to sign an equity release scheme in order to pay for repairs, which he was told were urgent.

Giving evidence to Oxford Crown Court, Mr Leigh-Dugmore, who said he had four decades’ experience in the building trade, told jurors the house was ‘remarkably free of cracking’ when he visited it in 2019.

Defendant Lewis McEwan, 42, of Whitewebbs Lane, Enfield, is accused of being part of a plan instigated by a man named in court only as ‘Geoffrey Simmons’ to persuade the homeowner to part with his home of 60 years under an equity release scheme that would see him paid £87,500 and live in the house rent free for the rest of his life.

‘Simmons’ told the pensioner that there were problems with the drains and subsidence. McEwan, who it is claimed visited days later, allegedly told the man it would cost ‘a lot of money’ to fix and was only possible through an equity release scheme. The alleged victim never took up the offer.

On Thursday, expert Mr Leigh Dugmore was asked by prosecutor Richard Heller if there was ‘any evidence of the need for essential or urgent works to it’.

The builder replied: “None whatsoever. There has been much made of the idea that these cracks are severe enough to warrant hacking the plaster off, putting expanded metal over the cracks and also raking out the cracks and using an epoxy mortar, as the other expert described it to ‘superglue’ the masonry back together. A complete waste of time and effort. There is nothing here that warrants that.”

McEwan denies conspiracy to defraud. The trial continues.