A builder accused of using a digger to cause up to £4 million worth of damage to a row of newly-built homes has appeared in court.
Daniel Neagu was charged with criminal damage after five of the retirement bungalows - each worth up to £800,000 - were wrecked in Buntingford, Hertfordshire.
The 30-year-old, who had previously worked on the site, did not enter a plea during the hearing at Hatfield Magistrates' Court on Monday.
Pictures of his wrecking spree taken by police shows the McCarthy and Stone homes all but destroyed. Walls are ripped down and debris litters the garden and road. Some of the properties - which were just weeks from being occupied - may now need pulling down.
“It looks like an earthquake or bomb struck,” neighbour Elaine Francois, 61, told The Sun.
Another neighbour and ex-builder William Griffiths, 67, said he had asked the digger driver what he was doing: “he said he wasn’t dangerous but hadn’t been paid,” he reported back. “He got out of the digger and I thought, ‘Great, he’s stopped’. But he got back to carry on. He seemed happy.”
Hertfordshire Police said officers arrested a man at the scene in the town's Ermine Street after being called at about 5.40pm on Saturday.
Neagu, a Romanian national living in Athelstone Road, Harrow, is not employed directly by McCarthy and Stone and was instead working for subcontractor Fenton, a company spokeswoman said.
"We are now awaiting a structural engineer's report, so we can plan the work required to repair or rebuild these properties," she added
"We are absolutely devastated for the purchasers affected and our priority is to continue to stay in close contact with them and their families, and to ensure that any disruption is kept to a minimum."
Neagu, who spoke in court only to give his particulars and state his desire not to enter a plea yet, was charged with one count of criminal damage to the value of £4 million on five houses belonging to McCarthy and Stone.
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