Charmer posed as Marine to con lonely hearts out of £40,000
A SMOOTH-talking conman posed as a former Royal Marine to trick lonely women out of thousands of pounds.
Michael Brain, 47, pretended to be an injured war hero on dating websites to dupe 28 women from across the UK into forming relationships with him and giving him money.
Dubbed a ‘ cash-card Casanova’ by a judge, Brain told dates he was an injured Marine who had served in the Gulf War and Afghanistan, and posted photos dressed in fake uniforms.
A court heard that at one point he had four different women ‘being played’ at the same time as he ripped them off to the tune of more than £40,000.
Prosecutor Nick Lewin told Plymouth Crown Court that Brain ‘was sexually active with a number of them concurrently’. The unscrupulous charmer would win the trust of his victims, who
‘Fraudulent lothario’
had personal problems through ill health or bereavement, and came from as far afield as Cambridge, Dorset, Derbyshire, Plymouth and Cornwall.
Mr Lewin said Brain had developed a ‘sophisticated and cynical strategy where he sympathised and empathised with victims’. He claimed he was a retired sergeant major and had served in the Royal Marines for 23 years and with the Special Forces, telling the women he met on dating websites, including Plenty of Fish, that he was ‘trained to kill’.
In fact he had never been a Marine, but had instead been in the Royal Navy until a decade ago.
The conman preyed on women who had suffered bereavement or domestic abuse by telling his own made-up ‘sob stories’, which were a far cry from reality.
Brain claimed burns on his body were from an IED explosion in Afghanistan. In fact, they were due to a gas canister blast in his mobile home. And he said his bedwetting was due to post-traumatic stress disorder incurred on the frontline, when it was really the result of ‘years and years of alcohol abuse’, the court heard.
The fraudster, who stole jewellery as well as cash from his victims to fund his gambling addiction, told victims that in Afghanistan he shot dead a boy wearing a suicide vest.
He said it had distressed him to kill a child the same age as his own son. Mr Lewin said Brain made out that he was a ‘good man who had fallen on hard times’, suffered from PTSD and had been ‘abandoned by his country’. The women fed him, bought him alcohol and cigarettes, and he never paid towards bills.
Some sat in court as they heard how Brain, from Plymouth, had claimed that he would pay them back when he received fictional compensation from the Marines.
CCTV also showed him noting some of their PIN numbers at cashpoints so he could plunder their accounts. His oldest victim was a 75-year- old with whom he had a ‘motherly relationship’ but stole £20,000. He told another woman his mother had died. But Mr Lewin confirmed she was alive and sitting in the public gallery.
Mr Lewin told the judge: ‘He is a fraudulent lothario callously bleeding every penny he could get.’ Brain admitted nine fraud and five theft charges between 2012 and 2015. He asked for 18 other offences to be taken into consideration and was jailed for four years.
Mr Lewin asked for 28 restraining orders banning Brain from having any contact with 28 women.
Judge Paul Darlow also imposed a Criminal Asbo, which now bans Brain for life from going on dating websites or gambling. He is also barred from wearing military uniform unless by dint of service. His downfall began after he quit the Royal Navy in his late 30s, split from his wife and began drinking.
Michael Green, defending, said Brain had written a letter to the judge apologising to the victims.