Conman sent down for six-year stretch

A RUTHLESS conman who preyed on vulnerable women for cash, leaving victims' lives in ruins, has been jailed for six years and four months.

Former private investigator Kenneth Tait, 44, duped a series of women out of a total of 155,229, with one victim agreeing to sell her home under extreme pressure from him.

Nurse Lesley Munro, 54, who yesterday turned up to see Tait being sentenced on her birthday, said: "I am relieved. He literally stole everything.

"I am here for all the other victims. It is a brilliant outcome. Yes, I have lost my house, I have lost everything, but he has got justice now."

Lord Tyre told Tait he would have faced an eight-year prison term, but for his guilty plea.

"The degree of cold, calculated callousness which you exhibited to these women, who looked to you for friendship and love, is shocking," he told Tait at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Tait, of Manchester, admitted carrying out three frauds and a theft in the Edinburgh area and at Glencare, Perth, between 2000 and 2007.