Nathan James Craven hit with new claims of incomplete landscape work in the Kwinana region

A Warnbro man who was denied bail earlier this month for allegedly beating his girlfriend and gouging her eyes has had more allegations levelled against him, with new claims that he’s a landscaper who has not completed work in months.

Nathan James Craven, who allegedly went on a violent 24-hour spree against his partner, hitting her while she was in the shower, tackling her to the ground outside their home and punching her multiple times, was engaged by 15 Kwinana residents to undertake landscape work on their homes, but they say he did not show up to do the work and now would not give their money back.

Orelia woman Liz France is one of the people who claims to have been scammed by Mr Craven and NKC Landscaping, and said she was given multiple excuses by his partner, Kat Hannan, as to why the work hadn’t been started, including that Mr Craven had been in a “terrible accident” and “still hadn’t woken up”, which was later confirmed to be a lie.

“We put a post in Kwinana chat on the first of September asking for recommendations to do a front yard reno when Nate inboxed me saying he would be in the area on September 3 and would pop in and give us a quote,” Ms France said.

“We chatted away regarding what I wanted to be done and the quote was really good. We paid the $4110 deposit, which was bank transferred on September 4.”

Ms France said everything seemed normal, until the night before the work was meant to start, when there was a huge storm, and no limestone or equipment had been dropped off in advance.

“I contacted them on every platform I had to chat about what their plans were and I got nothing back all that week,” she said.

“That’s when I started chatting to Kat about Nate’s terrible life-threatening accident. I didn’t buy it at all but she kept promising me that they would get the job done even if, God forbid, Nate died.”

In correspondence the Sound Telegraph has seen, Ms Hannan told Ms France her partner had not been in an accident but was actually in jail for allegedly assaulting her.

Owner of KJD Garden & Landscaping, Karl Durham, said he was “horrified” to see so many people claiming to have been “ripped off” by Mr Craven on a Facebook group page, and offered his services to help fix any work that had been partially completed by the business.

“I was horrified to hear about these incidents as it affects the industry as a whole,” Mr Durham said.

His advice to homeowners thinking of hiring a landscaper in the future is to “request an ABN, request a project schedule including a full itemised breakdown of materials and labour, not just a quote with a total, and ask to see previous work done by them”.

Mr Craven appeared in Rockingham Magistrates Court on December 8 via video link from Hakea Prison and appealed for bail again, claiming his business was “failing” and he “can’t finish jobs” due to being in custody, as well as claims his partner had received “death threats” from clients with unfinished jobs.

Magistrate Vivien Edwards remanded him until December 22 to consider his bail application.