A BLACKLISTED estate agent who was caught working twice after a UK consumer watchdog declared him unfit to practice has been left with a £1,715 court bill.

John Shepherd, 68, of Grove Estates in Newport, was banned from working as an estate agent last year after failing to sign up to a customer redress scheme.

The Office of Fair Trading barred him from engaging in estate agency work in June 2012 but he flouted the ban twice just weeks later, court records show.

He was ordered to pay £1,715 in fines and costs after he pleaded guilty to breaching the OFT order at Abergavenny Magistrates’ Court on Monday [August 12].

The Argus tried to contact Shepherd at his former Malpas Road estate agents yesterday [August 14] but the premises have been taken over by a florist.

Court records revealed that Shepherd had flouted the OFT ban twice in three weeks, on July 4 and on July 25, 2012.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of failing without reasonable excuse to comply with an order of the Office of Fair Trading prohibiting him from doing estate agency work contrary to the Estate Agents Act 1979.

Shepherd was ordered to pay a £600 fine for each breach of the OFT order, court records showed.

He was also ordered to pay £500 prosecution costs to Newport council and a £15 surcharge, totalling £1,715, the court records showed.

Shepherd was unavailable for comment but in January, he told the Argus he had not applied to join the consumer redress scheme in 2012 as companies had expressed an interest in taking over his business.

At the time, trading standards had given him a £1,000 fine for failing to join an OFT approved consumer redress scheme.

However, he told the Argus he had accepted the £1,000 fine as it would have cost him £2,500 to appeal the decision.