Reality dawns for online fraudster who conned women out of £40,000

Published on 08/09/2012 01:21

A FANTASIST who blogged about his experiences as a senior police officer during last summer’s London riots was yesterday jailed for five years for fraud after being exposed as a liar.

Ellis Ward, 29, whose postings about life as a Metropolitan Police inspector on the streets of London tackling rioters and looters, had a big online following, also posed as an army major who had been injured in Iraq and worked at the US embassy.

With an impressive array of uniforms and identity cards, the serial conman used his aliases to dupe three women out of more than £40,000.

Prosecutor Michael Williams told Winchester Crown Court: “The defendant is a professional and accomplished fraudster who, over a number of years, has portrayed himself as a senior police officer and an Army major injured in Iraq in order to gain the trust of female victims and obtain tens of thousands of pounds in money.

“It seems that from December 2008 until his apprehension in February 2012, his entire life was a fiction, of which he was the
author and, save for his imagination, there was no limit on the lies he was prepared to tell in order to get his hands on money.”

Ward was arrested in February as police forces including Essex, Wiltshire and Thames Valley helped track him down.

Inquiries discovered that as well as posing as a police officer, Ward also claimed to be a major in the Royal Military Police, and while living in Ware, Hertfordshire.

He claimed to be a man called Ethan Winchcombe or Sir Ethan Winchcombe.