FRAUDSTER Keith Skelton 's riches vanished when he was arrested by detectives, a court was told yesterday.
Skelton, 55, had conned finance companies to buy a £2m London house and a £133,808 motorhome, after terrifying his accountant to produce bogus company books.
But after a tip-off from a business associate, he lost his £125,800 deposit on the Richmond house and the luxury van was confiscated, said prosecutor Jeremy Hill-Baker.
Judge John Walford told Skelton, at Teesside Crown Court: "The money that you obtained was squandered in a vulgar and unnecessary display of wealth."
Skelton, of Durham Road, Aycliffe Village, near Darlington , was jailed for two and a half years after he pleaded guilty to ten charges of conspiracy to defraud and obtaining nearly £400,000 by deception, between December 1995 and August 1996.
His accountant, Ronald Semain, 49, of Garden Cottage, West Rainton, Northallerton , was given a six-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after he pleaded guilty to four offences of false accounting.
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