A gang of rogue builders admitted conning vulnerable pensioners out of around £150,000 and spent the proceeds in the pub, a court heard today.

They preyed on elderly householders and carried out unnecessary, shoddy and sometimes worthless work on their homes. One victim, from Billingham, Teesside, paid out £79,000, while a 70-year-old from Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, lost £58,500.

Another couple, from Northallerton, paid out almost £8,000 before they became suspicious.

At least 11 households were targeted by the conmen.

Richard Bennett, prosecuting, for North Yorkshire Trading Standards, said one victim had been left penniless after repeated visits by the fraudsters, and even went overdrawn to make payments, having lost tens of thousands of pounds.

Allan Phillips, 41, of Queen Street, Redcar, today admitted conspiracy to defraud, having changed his earlier not guilty plea.

Ring leader John Richards, 51, of Britannia Place, Dormanstown, Redcar, and George Chaffer, 45, of Oliver Street, Redcar, admitted the three-year conspiracy at an earlier hearing.

All three will be sentenced at a later date.

Teesside Crown Court heard the three men were alcoholics, have no assets and were believed to have drunk the proceeds. Mr Bennett said: ''They would finish the working day at 11 in the morning and they would go for the duration of the afternoon and drink until the money ran out.

''It would be interesting to see where this money has gone, I suspect it has gone to the local pub.''

The case against Phillips was opened before a jury yesterday, but was adjourned until today because of a problem with one of the panel. He then changed his plea today.

Mr Bennett had told the hearing: ''The prosecution say that these are the worst type of builders, because not only were they unqualified and wholly incompetent, but they were also dishonest and greedy.

''If that was not bad enough, they deliberately targeted elderly and vulnerable victims.

''They may be grossly incompetent builders but they worked as a very effective team.

''They managed to swindle a substantial amount of money out of people in the North Yorkshire and Tees Valley areas.

''Richards was the main man, the talker, the one with the gift of the gab, cold- calling victims, engaging them in conversation and trapping them, one after another.

''Chaffer and Phillips were the grafters, if one can use that expression.

''They would do the work at the property, or at least pretend to, and get paid.''

The court heard how they would charge for work which the elderly victims could see.

On one occasion they charged for re-felting a roof, but only replaced a small strip which covered the lip, to give the impression the whole job had been done properly.

Outside court, one victim spoke anonymously about the ''chatty'' and ''plausible'' gang who won his trust by befriending him.

It began when one of the men knocked on his front door and said a dormer window in the victim's 1950s home needed replacing.

From then on, they repeatedly asked for cash for work which may not even have been carried out, claiming they had been at the house when he was out.

The gang would ask to meet him at a cash machine and received hundreds of pounds - but never gave him an invoice.

When a financial adviser became suspicious about the amount of cash leaving his accounts, the victim contacted trading standards officials and a surveillance operation began.

The victim said: ''I should have been more knowledgeable about how much these jobs would cost.

''I have learned to trust people and people would trust me.

''I am saddened that I have been taken advantage of in this way as I had no way of knowing whether the work needed doing, or checking out what they have actually done.''

Having lost £58,500, he will now have to pay a further £3,000 to have the work put right.

Ruth Taylor, head of North Yorkshire Trading Standards investigations unit, said there were 11 known victims, although many more people may have been conned.

She said: ''Our advice is never deal with people on the doorstep.''