ROGUE traders who conned pensioners out of more than £800,000 were told they will go back to jail unless they pay back part of their haul.

Scott Jackson and Mark Shepherd have already served their sentences for targeting an elderly academic and a dementia sufferer in Oxford during a three-year scam.

At Oxford Crown Court this week, Shepherd, 45, of The Beeches Caravan site, Chipping Norton, was told to repay £50,000 in three months or face 18 months in jail.

Jackson, 41, of Willow Street, Leicester, has to repay a total of £29,000 within six months or face 12 months in jail.

Paul Harrison, prosecuting, said: “I think we have reached an agreement between us.”

As reported last year, the pair were told to repay these amounts, but both said in replies to the Crown that they had no funds.

Judge Patrick Eccles yesterday said: “Both defendants have now served their sentences, we shouldn’t be in this position.”

In March 2004, the two men told dementia sufferer Mary Turpin, 85, one of her chimneys was tilting and some tiles needed replacing at her North Oxford home.

Over 15 months she paid them a total of £364,906 for work which should have cost just £30,000.

The following year, 81-year-old retired Oxford University academic Dr Francis Marriott, who lived in Botley, forked out £506,880 for building work which was worth no more than £55,000.