An 82-year-old woman described how a builder vanished after she paid him more than £1,000 to start work on her driveway.

Thelma Moses told Oxford Crown Court yesterday that the man drove her to the Coventry Building Society and the TSB Bank where she withdrew a total £1,125. He dropped her off near to her house, claiming he was going to a builder's merchants for heavy machinery to break up her driveway in Leiden Road, Headington, Oxford. But he and two colleagues never returned.

John Collins, 31, of Red Bridge Hollow, near Kennington, denies theft.

Basil Hillman, prosecuting, said Collins was charged after one of his fingerprints was discovered on the pensioner's cash book.

Collins told the court he had worked at Miss Moses' house in March 1998 for a builder called Jim Harris. He claimed he left the fingerprint when she dropped the cash book.

Miss Moses said she did not remember Collins working at her house then, or him picking up the cash book.

Jonathan Coode, defending, said his client had asked for an identification parade to be carried out, but the police had chosen to charge him without one. Insp David Hill, of Oxford Police, agreed "with hindsight" one should have been held. The trial continues.