AN 82-YEAR-OLD Plympton woman who was conned out of her savings by a bogus roofer has been helped by three Plymouth companies.

After reading about the £4,000 scam in The Herald, Terry Luscombe of DT Plastics got in touch with police to offer his services free of charge.

The victim, Mavis Chandler has praised the men's generous action, saying it goes to show there are more good than bad people in the world.

"It's a big bonus," she said. "I'm very pleased after what happened.

"I never thought anyone would pay to do my roof."

Mr Luscombe, who lives in Whitleigh, said: "With the help of Ray Dyer of Central Roofing Company of Plymouth and John Ferris of Roofing Supplies Ltd of Cattedown, we've decided to redo the whole roof for this lady.

"We're doing it as a good deed before Christmas. We can't believe what this conman has done and we hope no-one else will fall for it."

Police are now hunting the offender, who knocked on Mrs Chandler's door offering to carry out any odd jobs.

Without thinking, she asked him to fix her leaky garage roof; after pretending to carry out the work over two days, he demanded £7,000 in cash but agreed to settle for £4,000 – her life savings. She withdrew the cash from the bank but the following day the offender returned and demanded an extra £1,000.

Mrs Chandler returned to the bank, but staff called the police and the man disappeared.

DC Karen Rothney, who is investigating the case, said: "It's nice to see that there are still some genuinely nice people out there willing to help people who have been unfortunate." Regarding the crime, she said: "We want the public to know that we're not going to tolerate this kind of behaviour and we'll keep looking until we find who's done this. We'll find out who is responsible."

Mrs Chandler added: "I just still can't believe I was taken in by this man, but he seemed so plausible.

"I want everyone to know about it so he might be caught and justice might be done."

The suspect is described as short and slim, with lots of dark hair and a fringe, and a round, clean-shaven face. He had an Irish accent and was accompanied by a youth described as slim, 6ft tall, in his late teens and wearing faded dark overalls.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 08452 777444 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111 quoting police crime reference EP/09/1425.