Casanova jailed for conning women
A LOTHARIO who defrauded lonely women in a series of fake romances has been jailed for 33 months.
Duncan Flett, 48, snared his victims on dating sites, including Plenty Of Fish.
He lured one woman into meeting him in a luxury hotel, had sex with her in a bedroom, then stole her car as she waited for him to join her in the restaurant.
He borrowed another date’s six-yearold car and sold it for scrap, and sent a third woman bouquets of flowers with her own money and took her on a VIP treat to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo – fraudulently charged to her mother’s credit card.
A court heard Flett had 61 previous convictions for fraud and had been involved in many similar Casanova cons.
The woman whom he took to the Tattoo and her elderly mother, both from Lochgelly, Fife, were left £1,678 out of pocket.
She met Flett, then calling himself Duncan Mcconnell, in Edinburgh in July 2019, the court heard. She took him home and introduced him to her mother.
Within a month he had run up more than £600 of unauthorised transactions on the woman’s debit card.
Her mother also found a series of unauthorised debits on her account, for flowers, hotels, and restaurants.
Prosecutor Michael Maguire said: “Over this period her daughter had received two bouquets of flowers from Interflora, with cards from the accused.”
Flett also racked up a total of £1,028 of debits on the mother’s Debenhams store card, including hotel stays, and the tickets for the Tattoo.
He told another Fife woman, whom he met on Plenty Of Fish, that his name was Duncan Mcdonald, he lived in Glenrothes, and he was a delivery driver.
She found his bags were gone, her car keys had been stolen, and when she went outside her car had been stolen too
After meeting him in the Fife Arms, Kirkcaldy, she took him home to Methil, Fife.
On December 6 last year she let him use her car, and received a message the next day saying he had been taken to hospital and couldn’t return it.
From there he messaged a breaker’s yard saying he had a black Chevrolet Spark he wanted to get rid of as the car engine management light had come on.
A salvage dealer met him in the steakhouse car park and paid him £40 scrap, but “became suspicious” after he winched the Chevvy on to his truck and Flett refused a lift back into Edinburgh saying he would rather get the bus.
Mr Maguire said: “The dealer parked in a slip road and watched the accused walk to the rear of the steakhouse, where a car with a female driver pulled up.
“The accused jumped in and they drove off towards Edinburgh together.”
On December 18, he met another woman on Plenty Of Fish, and she agreed to stay overnight with him the next day at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel at North Queensferry.
Mr Maguire said: “They had a drink in the bar before going to a bedroom and having consensual sex.
“Afterwards they went back downstairs.
“When she went to look at the restaurant menu she realised she had left her glasses upstairs and he said he would go and retrieve them.”
When after 20 minutes she realised he wasn’t coming back, she borrowed a pass key and went to their room.
Mr Maguire said: “She found his bags were gone, her car keys had been stolen, and when she went outside her car had been stolen too.”
Appearing at Falkirk Sheriff Court by video link from Perth Prison, Flett, of Edinburgh, pleaded guilty to fraud and car theft.