The range of construction schemes ripped off demonstrates how builders operate: from the bare-faced cheeky to the downright disgraceful.

With little respect for the law, major quoted companies Carillion and Interserve colluded to price-rig the £2.3 million construction of a new police station in County Durham.

The Crown Prosecution Service offices in Nottingham also fell foul —over a £65,000 quote for a refurb of the toilets.

And contractors even ripped off prisons in Nottingham and in Leicester.

There was no fear of the power of the press: the Derby Daily Telegraph was scammed by local builders Bowman & Kirkland and Herbert Baggaley in a half million pound project.

Sins were committed against methodist churches in Barnsley and at Swadlincote in Derbyshire, as well as a Salvation Army hall in Doncaster.

Contractor R Durtnell & Sons was named in the price fixing on a contract for a £4.5 million annex at Bedales, the avant garde boarding school in Hampshire, and for work at £12,000-a-year Sydenham High in south east London. In Middlesex, a £3.8 million academy building for Uxbridge College was short-changed by Galliford Try and Balfour Beatty.

Builders also ripped off the ill: builders Wygar and Thomas Vale colluded to fix prices on construction of a renal dialysis unit and diabetes centre at Birmingham's City Hospital.

Local contractors Haymills and Jackson were named for price-rigging work on psychiatric wards at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge and a £2.5 million critical care unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kings Lynn.