THE Port builder who vanished with pensioners’ savings before Christmas without carrying out agreed work is finally paying the money back — thanks to the Tele.

Davie Finlay took £700 in cash from three Greenock OAPs to strip and fully repair their shared exterior back wall in Greenock’s York Road.

But he disappeared amid accusations that he had left their property in ‘ruins’ — and further claims that he ignored a string of frantic phone calls from his elderly clients.

Finlay was branded a ‘conman’ by furious 75-year-old William O’Neill, who turned to the Tele for help after months of not hearing from the builder.

But we can reveal today that Mr Finlay has been making regular repayments of £100-a-time.

Out-of-pocket Mr O’Neill’s daughter, Helen Black, said: “He’s got one payment left to make but I don’t think we’d have got anywhere without the coverage in the Telegraph.

“I am pleased that my dad and his neighbours are getting some money back but it’s taken a long time to get to this stage.

“I would just like to thank the Telegraph for highlighting the situation so well.” Mr O’Neill had persuaded his neighbour Robert Dunn, 79, and Mr Dunn’s wife Marion, 78, to use Finlay after chatting to him during a chance meeting in the town centre.

But he later declared that the builder — who disappeared after erecting someone else’s scaffolding — had left the rear of the property like ‘a cowp’.

Finlay told the Tele on 12 February that he would pay all of the money back a week later after receiving a ‘big cheque’ he’d been waiting on, adding: “I’m not a conman at all.” But the man who runs his ‘Tweety Builders’ business from a house in the Port’s Oronsay Avenue failed to keep that promise.

Last month, he again pledged to pay the pensioners back after we confronted him on his doorstep.

He claimed that ‘bad weather’ had prevented him from carrying out the work.

Helen told how her dad and his neighbours hired other builders to finish Finlay’s botched job, and the work was completed weeks ago.

She said: “I’m glad Mr Finlay has had the courtesy to do the right thing at last.”