A Hexham fraudster who claimed to be a retired police officer and conned his partner out of £75,000 has been jailed.
Michael Eric Forster met a woman on a dating site and a relationship developed soon after, but the 69-year-old soon began telling the woman a web of lies, including that he was a retired police officer and that his wife had passed away when she hadn't.
Forster then persuaded the woman to invest thousands of pounds of her own money in Swiss investment bonds he claimed to have, and even paid fake payments into the woman's account which she believed was interest from her investment. But when the relationship was coming to an end and the woman asked for her money back, Forster became "aggressive" and cut all contact with her, leaving her £75,000 out of pocket.
