What steps do we need to take to recover our money from a landscape gardener who has been paid for materials but has not turned up to do any

In early March we accepted a quote from a local landscaping company to design and build our back garden. I had asked for recommendations on our community Facebook group and contacted a number of them. Only the one we accepted came back with a quote (which was very similar to a quote we had last year from another company so considered it to be fair). On 15th March he asked for money up front for materials (we believed this to be common practice) and so paid him £2325 by bank transfer. The following day he asked for a further £185.70 for stone he had forgotten to put on the first order. Again we paid. He told us work would begin on 17th. He didn't come on the 17th but did arrive pm on18th. Him and his colleague removed all of our existing back lawn and dumped it on our driveway to be picked up next day. We didn't see him that day, he made an excuse that he couldn't get the 'grab' to take away the mound. He did ask for more money though - he decided we needed a drain - so I transferred that money to him. He came very late the following day and did very little except to remove the grass at the edge of the garden where the digger had missed. Told us grab wagon would be there next day but it wasn't. Asked for another £170 for second grab wagon. That was when we first started to question him about the extras we were paying for but he assured us it would all be deducted from our final bill, but that he had to pay for materials as he ordered them.

Then came Lockdown and we haven't seen him since! We understood that he couldn't work but now lockdown has been relaxed he has endless excuses as to why, can't get stuff delivered/ordered, etc, though he had told us it was all ordered and paid for!!I

Since then he has been in touch periodically promising progress and start dates but nothing. (I have all the text messages saved on my phone). We have had enough of it. We now know he is a fraudster, from reading comments about him on a number of trade websites, and has done same with others - asking for money for materials then not doing the work. 

We have notified our bank who have said they will try to investigate him. We've sought advice from Citizen's Advice who are going to notify Trading Standards. We also phoned the police who said it was a civil case, not criminal! How can it not be a criminal offence to fraudulently obtain money for no goods or services??

We have drafted a 'time is of the essence' letter giving him 14 days to pay us back but I don't expect he would take any notice. We don't know what to do now. We are at our wits end. We are pensioners and can't afford to lose all that money. It's actually making us ill now. Please help if you can?