Robert Sheridan and Thomas Forbes, who also targeted four other pensioners, were jailed for three years and three months, and four years respectively.

Judge Mrs Justice Smith called the crimes "despicable" and said: "Society feels a sense of revulsion for people such as you."

The defendants, both 44, posed as "master craftsmen" and used the trading names Dr Guttering and Drips 'R' Us to create an air of respectability, Birmingham Crown Court heard.

Sheridan and Forbes, who had no building qualifications, tricked their victims out of sums ranging from �2,450 to �27,300, netting a total of �45,000.

Aged victims

Surveyors' reports compiled after a three-year crime spree around Birmingham revealed the often defective work to be worth little more than �5,500.

Nicholas Webb, prosecuting, said one victim, 69-year-old Verna Hotchkiss, had been forced to have her 15-year-old cat put down because she could not afford vet's fees.

The court heard she had paid Dr Guttering �4,660 for work on her home in Stirchley, Birmingham, when in fact the job was worth about �200.

The victims, in their mid-60s to late-80s, were "obviously very aged" or "wholly ignorant of building work", the court heard.

The defendants, both from Birmingham, admitted conspiring to defraud between January 1996 and January this year.

Forbes, who has several previous convictions for similar offences, also pleaded guilty to obtaining �3,900 by deception.