ONE of Britain's most notorious swindlers has been found guilty of posing as England's most senior lawyer in order to to target vulnerable women.
Paul "King Con" Bint, who has spent a lifetime "worming" his way into the "hearts and homes" of the opposite sex, wined and dined unsuspecting victims he met through lonely hearts adverts or the internet.
Throughout his latest campaign of deceit,
the unlikely looking lothario sported all the trappings of a successful barrister enjoying high-powered connections.
The 47-year-old told some of his "conquests" he was Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keir Starmer QC, while another knew him as Jonathan Reese, QC.
He boasted of owning a fleet of luxury cars, including one used in the James Bond film Goldeneye; that he had socialised with former 007 star Pierce Brosnan; was friends with singer Robbie Williams; and had once been married to British comedy actress Sarah Alexander.
London's Southwark Crown Court heard he even promised a woman a holiday for two in a sun-drenched Caribbean idyll.
Yet when he thought her affections might lie elsewhere, he got nasty.
He scrawled "bitch" on the side of her home, blamed his potential rival, claimed the man had repeatedly assaulted an ex-girlfriend, and convinced her to dump him.
Riel Karmy-Jones, prosecuting, said by the time the women realised who he was, Bint had misused a credit card belonging to one of them and stolen a valuable bracelet from another.
Bint, who owned up in court to a 30-year criminal career, insisted that on this occasion he had done nothing wrong.
He said while he had been genuinely interested in seeing if his latest "friendships" could develop into something "long-term", they had repaid his affections with lies.
The jury disagreed. It convicted him of five counts committed between 27 April and 5 May this year.
Two were for fraud by false representation – cheating a taxi driver of a £60 fare and using a credit card belonging to one of his women victims.
Another was for stealing a bracelet, burgling the robing room at St Alban's Crown Court and stealing a barrister's laptop, and test driving a £59,000 Audi R8 while disqualified.
He was cleared of seven other card frauds, and four of driving while disqualified, including one on the judge's direction.
Bint, of no fixed address, showed no reaction as the verdicts were delivered and remained equally impassive as judge Deborah Taylor remanded him in custody until 3 November for sentence.
Ms Karmy-Jones told the court Bint's "spree of fraud and deception" was "motivated first and foremost by gain for himself in financial terms and also creature comforts". "But perhaps a close second to this was a need to increase his own sense of self- esteem," she added.
"He was a conman, a confidence trickster, a man who, it seems, had no legitimate source of income other than state benefits and what he could scavenge off his victims, principally women, by abusing their confidence and trust."
'Bint makes Walter Mitty look like a newsreader'DUBBED by some "King Con", by others "King of the Swindlers", Bint has wooed a string of lonely women with a cocktail of charm and unswerving deceit.
With an acting ability of near-Oscar proportions, and a criminal record that began as a child, he has built an impressive repertoire of identity hijackings: hotelier, aristocrat, ballet dancer, banker, doctor, playboy, policeman and property magnate have all helped him convince his victims.
But his favourite pose has been that of top QC, a role played to perfection with the help of barristers' wigs, gowns and wingtip collars. In the process, he has stolen thousand of pounds of cash and property.
One lawyer accused him of making "Walter Mitty (below] look like a nine o'clock newsreader".
Bint has been diagnosed with a psychopathic condition, but cannot be admitted to hospital because the condition is untreatable.
Northampton-born Bint, whose first crime at 15 was stealing fishing equipment, told jurors: "I lived in an absolute dream world."
At 16, he said he "started to act out my dreams", initially by burgling Northampton General Hospital, stealing a stethoscope and imagining he was a doctor because of the kindness shown him years earlier in hospital. At 21, he dusted off his stolen stethoscope, found a white coat and toured hospital wards in north-west England.
During one incident, he groped a woman's breast and said: "Trust me, I'm a doctor."
He also arranged X-rays, attended a man with a collapsed lung, put 12 stitches in another patient's head, tried to bluff his way into a heart bypass operation, authorised blood transfusions and dispensed drugs.
In Leeds he attended to a 17-year-old car crash victim and told her parents she would be fine. She died six hours later.
Later, he moved on to car scams. During one incident, he was arrested on the M1 in a Mercedes he had been allowed to test drive after claiming he was the Duke of Arundel. Using the same blue-blood moniker earned him a four-year sentence at St Albans Crown Court in 1988, after he conned a salesman into giving him the keys of an £83,000 Ferrari.
Two years later, he began the Scottish phase of his career by boarding the first-class carriage of a Virgin train heading for Edinburgh.
Posing as QC Lacklan Campbell-Brierden, who was involved in the Lockerbie trial, he claimed that his laptop, with vital data, and his wallet had been stolen while on board. Apologetic train company executives agreed to cover the cost of his accommodation at the Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh.
There he ran up a £545 bill and romanced a former Miss Edinburgh. She even became engaged to him, convinced he was a wealthy lawyer. During their liaison, he talked about owning a London mansion and a collection of classic cars. He fled after about five weeks.
In 2002, he was admitted to hospital claiming to be suffering the after-effects of a crash in his Aston Martin and pretended to be Orlando Pownall, QC, the prosecutor in the Jill Dando murder trial.
In 2007, he posed once more as a heavyweight QC, this time representing the family of Madeleine McCann, as he seduced and cheated a businesswoman out of thousands of pounds.
Despite his record, Bint does not accept he is a conman and instead believes he is simply misunderstood.
