A CONMAN who posed as a cruise ship captain to sell bogus luxury holidays at exotic locations to friends, their family and acquaintances has been jailed.

Serial fraudster Jody Oliver, 44, from Newport, duped his victims out of £320,000 by offering them knockdown prices for non-existent cruises.

Among those scammed were people who have lost their savings after believing they had booked “once-in-a-lifetime holidays”.

The "Walter Mitty" swindler would go to extraordinary lengths to maintain the ruse and would dress up as a P&O captain to deceive them.

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He created a fake captain’s ID he kept on a lanyard, false payslips and fictional members of staff he pretended he was regularly in touch with.

Oliver was also living a double private life and divided time between his wife and his boyfriend in Newport on weekends, the city’s crown court heard.

Andrew Davies, prosecuting, said: “The defendant was at the centre of an intricate web of lies and deceit.

“He did not care who he hurt or sought to swindle and lied even to those he professed to love.

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“The defendant used different names and job descriptions to obtain money and to live a life that he could not afford.

“He was living two separate fantasy lives neither of which he could sustain with legitimate income.”

Oliver pretended to his partner in Newport Rhys Burgess that he was a successful high flying business executive who worked for Jaguar Land Rover.

Mr Burgess did not know that the defendant was married with three children.

It was after lying about being “headhunted” by P&O owner Carnival that he created his alter ego of Captain Jonathan Flynn Oliver.

Centred around the Alma Inn pub in Newport where he socialised, he began offering free cruises to his circle as “perks of the job” before moving on to "sell them" at bargain prices.

By this time Oliver was well over his head in debt and had lost more than £130,000 from gambling within just 12 months and had taken out crippling high interest loans to try and stay afloat.

“He started masquerading as a cruise ship captain,” Mr Davies said.

“The simple ploy that the defendant used was to offer luxurious cruises to exotic locations at a fraction of the price from those obtained from a legitimate agent.

“He created the aura of a cruise ship captain through a variety of means which included dressing up as a captain when he met people to discuss potential cruises.”

The holidays were then cancelled because of “security issues” overseas or problems with the cruise ships.

He was a seasoned con artist, Mr Davies said.

The defendant had gained notoriety in 2004 after conning former world champion rally driver Colin McRae into believing Coca-Cola was offering him a £3m sponsorship deal.

The former special police constable was also convicted of a VAT scam three years ago.

Oliver, formerly of Bwlch, Brecon, and Barbourne Road, Worcester, admitted six counts of fraud.

The offences were committed between February 2018 and January 2019.

Matthew Buckland, mitigating, said the only things he could offer was an apology on behalf of Oliver and that he had eventually pleaded guilty.

His barrister told the court: “The defendant’s life was spiralling out of control for a lengthy period.

“He has left a path of devastation.”

Judge Richard Williams told the defendant: “The motivating factor in your offending was your profound dishonesty and willingness to leech off those of your acquaintance.”

Oliver was jailed for six years and could face a proceeds of crime hearing as the authorities look to see if any money can be seized from him to compensate his victims.