A crooked builder who left a devastated East Lothian couple with a “half-demolished” house and conned them out of £100,000 has escaped a jail sentence.

Sean Sutherland, 32, was paid the huge six figure by homeowners Chris and Amanda Harvey after being employed to carry out renovation work on their family home in Haddington . But after tearing down half the five-bedroom property the owner of SWS Timber Frame and Construction Ltd abandoned the job leaving the family “in a dire situation financially”.

The couple and their two children had to temporarily move out after their house was left unliveable and were forced to employ a second firm to fix the mess left by Sutherland. Chris, 39, and Amanda, 38, subsequently reported the self-employed tradesman to the police and he was later arre

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