A rogue plumber who fleeced a retired nurse out of more than £5,000 has insisted: "I'm no scumbag".

Gary Seabrook, 41, faces jail after wildly overcharging spinster Muriel Burbidge to clear a blocked toilet. The job should have cost about £100.

Miss Burbidge's family said she became nervous and upset after falling victim to Seabrook's scam.

A year later, she died, aged 73, from kidney failure caused by a diabetic ulcer.

Her cousin, Brenda Soanes, 75, said: "She had been a happy-go-lucky lady before that. But she withdrew into herself and became very nervous. It's a dreadful thing to do to an elderly woman living on her own."

Seabrook drove Miss Burbidge, of Barrack Road, Bexhill, to her bank and post office to withdraw £1,025 in cash, including three weeks' pension totalling £175.

He charged a further £4,230 to her Switch card, making a total of £5,255 for seven hours work. Even at Seabrook's inflated £180-an-hour charges, she should have been billed no more than £611.

Seabrook, of Beecholme Drive, Ashford, Kent, pleaded guilty to six counts of criminal deception at Eastbourne Magistrates' Court.

Vanessa Caira, prosecuting, said a further charge against related to a second victim, a 30-year-old woman from Flimwell, near Robertsbridge.

He billed her almost £3,000 to remove a toilet freshener blocking her loo and fit bath taps.

Seabrook returned to court for sentencing yesterday but magistrates decided they did not have enough power to impose the sentence they believed he deserved. He will be sentenced at a Crown Court.

Miss Burbidge, known widely as Wendy, spent most of her working life as a nurse at Bexhill Hospital and worshipped at St Peter's Church in Old Town, Bexhill.

When a blockage caused sewage to flood her bath tub, she called her usual plumber but he was on holiday. She searched the Yellow Pages and found First Call Direct, which Seabrook worked for.

Seabrook told her he charged £35 per half-hour for labour, plus an extra £55 per half-hour if he needed to use equipment - a total of £180 an hour.

He said he would need to use various pieces of equipment, including a jet suction machine, to clear the drain and a cutting machine to remove tree roots which had damaged the pipes.

However, Miss Burbidge's solicitor became suspicious afterwards and contacted Kent trading standards which hired an engineer to examine his work.

A prosecution was brought by East Sussex trading standards after the investigation revealed no tree roots had been cut and the blockage could have been cleared in slightly more than three hours.

Mrs Caira said: "Mr Petfield (a surveyor) stated that a blockage not due to root growth or broken pipework would take very little time indeed, no more than one-and-a-half hours.

"Mr Petfield spoke to other similar companies and established the whole works could have been carried out for £107.50, including VAT."

After Miss Burbidge's solicitor and trading standards got involved, First Call Direct refunded her more than £1,690.

Mark Glendenning, defending, said Seabrook accepted he overcharged for work that was not done fully.

He said his client was supporting his three children, aged from 16 to five, after his wife of 11 years left him and he earned a percentage of every job, instead of getting a fixed wage.

Mr Glendenning said: "It was the pressure placed on him that caused him to succumb to temptation and overcharge.

"You will have read and heard stories about rogue plumbers and traders. Mr Seabrook would appear to be one of those plumbers and I have no doubt that is how he'll be portrayed."

It emerged Seabrook - who had a single conviction for stealing collection money while a 19-year-old milkman - was still working as a plumber.

Outside court, he refused to speak to reporters. However, he responded to one question by saying, "I'm no scumbag" before being led away.