Timeshare fraudster John "Goldfinger" Palmer has failed to get the £2m compensation he was ordered to pay his victims halved.

The Court of Appeal in London rejected the argument that the figure was excessive because Palmer had already paid back millions and half his victims were still making use of the timeshares they bought in Tenerife.

Palmer's lawyers said he should not be required to repay people who retained the asset they had bought, even though they were persuaded to buy it by fraud.

But the appeal judges said Palmer had agreed the amount of compensation and it was not open to him to have "another bite of the cherry" after 18 months in which his victims had not had access to their money.

Palmer, in his 50s, from Battlefields, Bath, was jailed for eight years at the Old Bailey in May 2001 for conspiracy to defraud. His estimated 17,000 victims, many in the North, were said to have handed over millions of pounds to buy shares in apartments which, in many cases, did not even exist.