THE owners of a Long Lane business have been jailed and ordered to pay £1 million after failing to complete unpaid work.

SAS Fire and Security Systems Ltd, which had an office in Warrington Business Park, on Long Lane, was run by David Diaz, Ludovik Black and Gary McVey.

Warrington Borough Council’s assistant director of regulation and public protection, Pete Astley, said: “These three men were found guilty in 2012 of unfairly selling burglar alarms to residents.

"They would cold-call potential buyers and persuade them to allow an employee to visit and offer an alarm for free, or for £1.

"But during the visit it would turn out that to get the ‘free’ alarm it was necessary to spend thousands on a monitoring contract.

“Diaz, Black and McVey were each sentenced to 150 hours of community work. But they didn’t comply with that order, so they were found guilty of contempt of court.”

After pleading guilty they were sentenced at Norwich Crown Court with Diaz and Black jailed for four-and-a-half months, while McVey was sentenced to two months in prison.and ordered to pay £1 million under a confiscation order and a further £400,000 in legal costs.

Mr Astley added: “We would advise everyone to be wary of cold-callers all the time, and remember that you can simply put the phone down if they’re being pushy.

"If they do visit your home, remember that if you ask them to leave they must do so, and if they refuse to leave you can call the police. And if in doubt, you can always call your local Citizens’ Advice Bureau or trading standards for advice.”