The many faces of a serial conman

By Marie Jackson
BBC News

Bint has previously been told he has an untreatable psychopathic disorder

A conman with a long history of posing as wealthy and important people to win the affections of women has been jailed for three years.

He has impersonated an aristocrat, a ballet dancer, a banker, a doctor, a playboy and a policeman.

In his latest incarnation, Paul Bint, a homeless conman, took the name of one of Britain's most senior legal minds, Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, to pose as a successful criminal barrister.

Wearing a pin-striped suit and carrying a bundle of papers tied with a ribbon, he managed to convince women he found in lonely hearts adverts that he was a well-connected, wealthy romantic.

In truth, he is a former hairdresser surviving on benefits with a string of convictions who has been given the moniker "King Con" by the tabloid press.

Bint was jailed for three years on Tuesday - the latest in a series of jail terms in what Judge Deborah Taylor called an "appalling" criminal record.

Goldeneye car

Prosecutors said Bint, 47, was able to woo women by "combining an undoubted skill in acting and improvisation with a little bit of research and a few well-chosen props".

He boasted of a friendship with Robbie Williams and a former marriage to British comedy actress Sarah Alexander, the star of Coupling and Green Wing who is actually married to fellow actor Peter Serafinowicz.

He also told them he drove the Aston Martin used in James Bond film Goldeneye and promised to take them on exotic holidays.

And when another man appeared to be competing for one woman's affections, he warned her off by accusing his rival of beating women.

Bint passed himself off as director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer

On Monday, a jury at Southwark Crown Court found Bint guilty of five counts including theft and fraud by false representation during the weeks he spent posing as a lawyer in April and May this year.

He was cleared of 11 further offences of credit card fraud and driving while disqualified.

The convictions are nothing new however. His 25-year history of offending has seen him con cash, expensive cars and hotel suites out of a string of victims.

Bint's penchant for role play first came to light in 1983, when he was discovered posing as a locum doctor at hospitals in north-west England.

It emerged he groped a woman's breast, saying: "Trust me, I'm a doctor." He also tried to bluff his way into a heart bypass operation.

Later, he moved on to elaborate car scams, often posing as a wealthy aristocrat or businessman interested in top-of-the-range models.

In August 2000, Bint was jailed for nine months at Newcastle Crown Court for conning rail chiefs into putting him up in a luxury hotel by pretending to be a QC in the Lockerbie bombing trial.

Three years later, he tricked a hospital consultant into believing he was Orlando Pownall QC, a prosecuting lawyer in the Jill Dando murder case.

Bint stole £60 and her gold credit card after she let him stay at her Hampstead home to recover from a make-believe car crash.

At the sentencing, the judge said a psychiatric report concluded that Bint was suffering from an untreatable psychopathic disorder.

Bint told women he had been married to actress Sarah Alexander

Over the years, other people have tried to see into Bint's mind and fathom his motivation.

In the latest trial, prosecutors suggested Bint had been motivated by financial gains, but also by a need to boost his own self-esteem.

Bint, himself, rejected the notion he was a conman, saying he could have stolen "hundreds of thousands" of pounds but never had.

He said pretending made him feel good, even though he knew he was deceiving people.

"It makes me feel very good that someone thinks I am a good person and I'm successful," he told jurors.

'Escape'

His desire to escape his own identity has been linked to an unhappy youth spent in a children's home after his parents split up.

Some years ago, Bint told BBC's Everyman programme: "I would like to stop pretending I am something I am not and accept I am what I am.

"I have spent my life running away from things that are extremely painful to me. Others drink or take drugs to escape, but the way I have done it is by being other people."

But the sincerity of Bint's remarks to the programme remains uncertain.

He also told Everyman about another scam in which he had stolen a red Ferrari from an earl. But when programme makers contacted the earl, he said he had never heard of Bint - nor had he ever owned a red Ferrari.

His barrister said he took on other identities to make him feel "worthwhile", but it appears he may have to find other ways to do that in the future.

Declaring him "a menace", Judge Taylor told him that when paroled he was "to only use your own name, Paul Bint".