Unpaid builder filmed himself destroying five homes in dispute over wages

A builder who destroyed five newly built retirement homes with a digger in a row over unpaid wages has been jailed for four years.

Daniel Neagu filmed himself whooping and whistling as he repeatedly smashed the vehicle into the unoccupied properties in Buntingford, Hertfordshire.

The 31-year-old caused so damage during his 40-minute wrecking spree that all five homes – worth up to ?475,000 each – had to be pulled down later and rebuilt.

At one point during his destruction, the former plant operator recorded himself telling an onlooker he was owed ?6,000 for helping build the row.

He said: “I decided even if get in trouble I did it for a reason, because I didn't get paid, you know what I mean?"

The passer-by replied: "Go back in and smash up another one."

Neagu, of Harrow, north west London, admitted criminal damage worth ?1m when he appeared at St Albans Crown Court.

The court heard he claimed his firm was owed ?16,000 in unpaid wages by a subcontractor, Fenton Construction.

When the company refused to pay, he took the digger and ripped down the row called Royal Gardens on 11 August last year.

In another moment caught on film during the destruction, he tells a couple living on the same street: “I'm not a dangerous guy, if you like call the police, you can call the police.”

Later, he turned the camera on himself with an apparent message for his one-time employers: “I hope you are happy with that and this is a good lesson for you to understand - next time, you pay your boys, your hard workers."

Fenton – which was working on behalf of developers McCarthy and Stone – told the court it had withheld the money because one of its vehicles, which was fitted with a tracker, was found to be in Neagu's native Romania.

He admitted taking it and said it would be returned when he was paid, the court heard.

Sentencing, Judge Stephen Warner said: “This was planned, deliberate and wanton vandalism involving the destruction of other people's property undertaken by you as a pure act of revenge.”