Fake MI5 spy is jailed for fraud

The fake MI5 ID card which the court heard belonged to Marcus Alder

A former policeman who pretended to be a secret agent has been jailed for a string of offences including fraud and firearms charges.

Peterborough Crown Court heard Marcus Alder, of Offord Darcy, Cambridgeshire, had a fake MI5 identity card and drove a BMW with the registration, MI5 SPY.

In October jurors convicted him of perverting the course of justice, perjury, fraud and other offences.

Alder, 48, who had denied wrongdoing, was jailed for 14 years.

Earlier the court heard he had pretended to be the gay lover of a wealthy friend in a effort to claim a share of the dead man's fortune.

'Motivated by greed'

He faked a suicide note after finding Philip Tyssen-Gee dead in Somersham, Cambridgeshire, in 2006 and tried to trick relatives into giving him at least £100,000, jurors were told.

Police later found a note that Alder had written on a computer in which he said: "I am just after Phil's money. It's true, I am a dodgy git but definitely hetero."

Jurors heard that Alder carried a fake MI5 identity card - which incorrectly spelled the name of the intelligence agency's director general - and drove a BMW with the registration MI5 SPY.

Marion Bastin, the Crown Prosecution Service's Cambridgeshire district Crown prosecutor, said Alder "was so motivated by greed that he used threats of violence, guns, swords and other weapons to intimidate and blackmail his victims".