‘Fraud is not a victimless crime,’ the Insolvency Service said, and in Derby that reads less like a slogan than a blunt description of what happened. Families in Darley Abbey, Allestree and Mickleover were left with unsafe rooms, missing money and months of upheaval after paying builder Michael Haslam for work that was never properly finished. (gov.uk) Haslam, of Littleover, was originally given a 28-month prison sentence at Derby Crown Court on 1 July 2026 after admitting fraudulent trading. But the government’s update of 26 August says the Court of Appeal has now suspended that sentence for two years, with a rehabilitation order and 160 hours of unpaid work. Losses across seven households were put at about £210,000. (gov.uk)

According to the Insolvency Service, this was not simply a case of a builder falling behind on a couple of jobs. Investigators said Haslam kept taking upfront payments through M&J Builders Limited between 2020 and 2022 when he knew the company was insolvent, and that customers would never have agreed to pay if they had known the true state of the business. He also received the maximum 15-year ban from acting as a company director. (gov.uk) Companies House now records M&J Builders Limited as dissolved from 29 July 2026. That may close the file at corporate level, but it does not repair homes or refill savings accounts in the streets where the damage was done. (find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk)

A woman in Darley Abbey, who had bought a property to renovate for retirement, paid more than £150,000 in early 2021. The Insolvency Service said she received only around £40,000 worth of work before the site was left unfinished and littered with waste, and she then had to spend another £18,000 just clearing it so somebody else could step in. (gov.uk) She later said the ordeal took away her trust in people and the retirement she had worked for. In her words, it was ‘not an honest mistake’. That distinction matters. For households like hers, this was not a disappointing contract. It was a life plan knocked off course. (gov.uk)

In Allestree, one family paid £47,760 for a single-storey extension and garage refurbishment, then a further £6,600 when Haslam said work would restart. It did not. The official account says the house was left without running water for seven months, with faults including steelwork that could not properly support the load of the property and sewage spilling onto a patio. (gov.uk) Another Allestree customer paid £12,080 up front for a kitchen renovation and was left with unfinished work, missing windows and doors that had never been ordered, and extra borrowing on the mortgage to make the place safe. Two more victims in Mickleover were told parts of their homes might need demolishing or were left without a safe fire exit and secure door after paying thousands. (gov.uk)

What shifts this story from shoddy building into something more serious is where the money is said to have gone. The Insolvency Service found nearly £400,000 leaving the M&J Builders business account under the reference ‘MG Haslam Expenses’. A £75,000 loan paid to the company in October 2020 had gone within weeks, and investigators identified a further £63,055 in cash withdrawals from the business account. (gov.uk) Investigators also traced a personal account showing £164,229 in cash withdrawals, almost £19,000 spent on Amazon and eBay, and £77,376 paid to Haslam’s daughter. Some customers had been told to pay into that same personal account, with cash withdrawals from the business and personal accounts sometimes made within minutes of each other at the same cashpoint. (gov.uk)

For local readers, the hardest part may be the ending. A man who admitted fraudulent trading, after seven households were left with unsafe or unfinished homes, will not go to prison now unless he breaches the terms of his suspended sentence. That will jar in plenty of kitchens and living rooms, especially for families still paying back loans or finishing repairs they never budgeted for. (gov.uk) Mark Stephens, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said residents would never have gone near Haslam if they had known the state of the company’s finances. That is the lesson hanging over Derby after the court case: better checks, sharper enforcement and less blind trust when firms ask for large sums up front. The director ban matters, but the bigger question is how households are protected before the damage is done. (gov.uk)