The bank smelled a rat.. and the rat was you

Judge condemns fraudster who duped friend and OAPs

- SALLY HIND

A FRAUDSTER who duped kids into thinking he was a theatre star has been jailed for another scam. 

Gary Feeney, who took cash from young Scots acting hopefuls before being exposed as a Walter Mitty, has been locked up for more than three years over a £20,000 credit con.

The 55-year-old targeted two pensioners and a vulnerable pal in his latest scam before pleading guilty to 11 fraud offences in England.

A court heard Feeney, who had recently been living in Workington in Cumbria, went by 12 different aliases and applied for credit in false names from credit card companies, banks and catalogue sales firms.

Jailing Feeny for 39 months, a judge slammed the serial con artist for his sickening betrayal of a close friend, saying: “You were a cuckoo in the nest.

“Stealing from her, from under her nose.”

Six of Feeney ’s crimes involved the pal, who he knew through a Lake District charity singing group. She knew him as Gary Adams but was also aware he went by Hume and Feeney.

Prosecutor Andrew Evans told Carlisle Crown Court: “She was persuaded to let him live rent-free as he had told her he had nowhere to go.”