Robert Hendy Freegard posed for years as an MI5 agent, drawing friends and lovers into an imaginary spy world. He lived a James Bond lifestyle while he systematically destroyed the lives of those who believed in him and robbed them of at least £650,000.

Freegard convinced a group of students that he worked for MI5 and gradually conned one, John Atkinson, and his parents out of £300,000. Another fell in love with Freegard and went on to bear his two children.

He seduced one victim and went on to blackmail and systematically humiliate her, even as he was wining and dining another, funding the affair with money stolen from the woman’s own bank accounts.

His last victim was an American whose parents he convinced to part with thousands of dollars to fund ‘spy school’ courses for her.

But the police were by now on his trail and, working with the FBI, a sting was set up and Robert Hendy Freegard was finally arrested in a Heathrow car park.