We paid our builder £44k then he had us arrested

A tale of shattered trust and legal chaos

Rob and Lucy Davies once envisioned a perfect home extension, but their dream turned into a disaster. The couple, from Langdon Hills in Basildon, Essex, hired builder Steve Figg to complete the project, only to face a nightmare that left their house in ruins and them temporarily imprisoned. Figg, who had already received £44,000 from the pair, accused them of harassment and claimed he wanted to kill them, prompting a police arrest.

According to Davies, the situation reached its peak in October 2024, nearly a year after Figg began work. The single-storey extension, expected to take 12 weeks, had become a site of chaos. A gaping hole in the garden and a collapsing back wall left the house vulnerable to rats and unable to retain warmth. “It was like a bomb site,” Davies described, highlighting the severity of the damage.

“The only way I could describe how our house looked was like a bomb site,” explains Rob Davies, 37. “There was a huge, gaping hole in the garden where the kitchen was supposed to go and the back of the house was at risk of collapse.”

While the Davies faced 22 regulatory breaches, their ordeal was far from isolated. Figg Construction Ltd’s work disrupted lives beyond their own. Gemma Hemmings, 40, and her husband, Steve, 38, shared their experience of being confronted by Figg shortly after their newborn arrived. Armed with a chainsaw and sledgehammer, he destroyed their garden office during a heated dispute over payment.

“We watched while he destroyed everything with a big smile on his face. It was terrifying,” Hemmings recalls. “He was someone who’d been in our house and around our children. We’d let him into our family.”

Hemmings and her husband were forced to stay away from their home for 10 weeks as Figg made excuses for the prolonged work. Despite the trauma, Hemmings admits they are among the luckier victims. Unlike others, their property remained intact, though the stress of the situation drove them to install cameras. “If you’d asked me four years ago, I’d have probably said I wanted him dead,” Hemmings says. “But now I don’t think about the man. He’s getting everything he deserves for what he did to us.”

The Davies’ £75,000 investment in the project included £28,000 for repairs and £3,000 in legal fees. Figg’s actions escalated when he reported the couple for harassment, leading to their arrest at work and 22 hours in Grays police station. The case against him was revealed after Basildon Council’s building control team gathered evidence, exposing the extent of his negligence. The court also heard of ongoing investigations into potential crimes against four other unidentified victims.