SERIAL FRAUDSTER

REBECCA Rouse thought she had found Mr Right after falling for a man she met on Tinder.

Then just two months into their relationship, Paul Gillett told her he needed an urgent kidney transplant.

Smitten Rebecca transferred thousands of pounds into his account to help him pay private medical bills.

But she was heartbroken when he disappeared – and turned out to be a serial fraudster who also flogged fake Ed Sheeran tickets.

Rebecca, 35, said: “I still can’t believe the lengths he went to for money.

“When we first met, I really believed I’d found someone decent and that we had a lasting relationship.

“He seemed so nice and it felt like there was potential for it to blossom into something long-term.

“It’s really shaken my trust in men. I’m still in a bad way because of him.”

Rebecca met 28-yearold Gillett after swiping right for him on dating app Tinder in February 2017.

He claimed to work as a funeral director and they messaged each other daily.

Rebecca said: “I’d been single since the beginning of 2015 so it took a lot to put myself out there again.

“He wasn’t like all the other people on Tinder and he appeared genuinely interested in me.

“All his messages were so flattering. Whenever I got one, it would put a huge smile on my face.”

After messaging for a couple of weeks, Rebecca exchanged numbers with the charmer and arranged to meet him after her shifts at a local Co-op.

Generous

She introduced Gillett to her mum Marianne, 65, who she lived with in Lincoln.

Rebecca a said: “He came around the e night we met and my mum um really liked him. We started seeing each other r most days and Paul ul was so generous.

“He’d take mum and me out ut for meals and insist on paying.

“He even n mentioned taking me e to see Ed

Sheeran for or my birthday, so everything ing was going really well between us.

“Paul was as always talking about out his f amily and showing us photos. He kept saying he’d arrange for us to meet.

“I never met his family or friends but he said they all lived in Cornwall.

“It was so far away I didn’t find it odd that I hadn’t met them yet. He kept talking about taking me with him the next time he went for a visit.

“He was so romantic and everything seemed perfect.”

The next month, Gillett moved in with Rebecca and her mum after he told her his flat had become uninhabitable after a storm destroyed his chimney.

She said: “When he told us he was having house repairs and looking for a hotel, my mum suggested he come and stay with us for a few weeks while it got sorted. She thought he was a decent guy so she didn’t think twice about inviting him to stay.”

Rebecca – who suffers from intracranial hypertension, caused by a build-up of fluid on the brain – felt a connection to Gillett after he opened up about his supposed health problems.

Hospital

“Paul started telling me more about himself and mentioned a problem with his kidney,” she said.

“He told me he had an operation as a kid and he still had issues with it.

“I’d been in and out of hospital over the years with my condition so it was nice to meet someone who knew what it was like.”

One evening a few weeks later, Rebecca received a call from Gillett – who told her he had gone into hospital with kidney pains.

She said: “I tried to call him but h he told me the signal was ba bad on the ward, so he c couldn’t speak.

“He told me they were keeping him in on a drip and running tests. I was so worried.

“I wanted to go to hospi pital to be by his side but he insisted he was fine and coul couldn’t have a visitor.

“He was b back after a few days and told me that he’d been put on dialysis.

“He even showed me the surgical dressing on his side after having treatment.

“He knew exactly what to say, so it was all very convincing.”

Gillett claimed he went for another hospital visit – where doctors told him he would need to go for an MRI and a kidney transplant.

The swindler convinced her to fork out £3,182 for his “private medical treatment” and travel in April 2017.

She said: “He told me the waiting list on the NHS was too long and he’d have to go privately to a clinic he found in Cornwall. I transferred him the money from my savings account so he could cover the cost of a scan and his travel c costs.

“But once he left, he got har harder to reach and I started to get suspi suspicious.

“He wo wouldn’t answer my calls and when h he gave me his mum’s m number, n no one would answ answer that either.

“The whole situation was so st stressful that it made my condition flare up. I got a horrible h

pain in my