A FORMER Queens Park Rangers Football Club director and ex-Gwent Police officer who led a "jet-set lifestyle" swindled an elderly brother and sister out of almost £300,000.

Lyndon Fuller and his wife were the former best friends of victim Mrs Ursula Antoniou's daughter, Helena Payne, and he used that connection to swindle her mother and uncle.

Mrs Antoniou, from New-port, said: "I hope he goes down for a long time for what he has done. He has made a lot of people suffer.

"I had to carry this for years and my husband died last December not knowing what had happened.

"He (Fuller) used to emphasise how lucky he was to have such good friends. We never knew how good we were," she said.

Fuller owned Fans 1st, a firm offering financial advice to supporters, staff and players at top football clubs like Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers, as well as English rugby champions Wasps.

At Newport crown court, Fuller, 47, formerly of East Lynne Gardens, Caerleon, was due to stand trial on 15 charges.

But the former police constable from 1976 to 1988, stationed in Brynmawr and Ebbw Vale, pleaded guilty to five charges.

He admitted one count of obtaining a money transfer by deception from Mrs Antoniou between May and June 2002.

Fuller accepted two counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception against Mr Lewis of £100,000 and £70,000 between July and August 2002.

He also admitted attempting to obtain a money transfer from Zurich Financial Services Plc between October and December 2001 and making a false statutory declaration under the Perjury Act.

His wife, Caroline Fuller, 40, was cleared of obtaining a money transfer by deception and attempting to obtain a money transfer by deception when the prosecution offered no evidence.

Speaking outside the court, Detective Constable Martyn Edwards, from Gwent Police's fraud squad, said: "We are very pleased with the outcome. "This investigation commenced in January 2003, spanned the length and breadth of the country and also took us to Auckland in New Zealand to gather evidence.

"It is fair to say, although it doesn't feature as part of the indictment, it is a fact that numerous people have invested over the period between 2000 and 2002 in excess of £700,000. That money has been lost."

He added that Fuller, a former director on QPR's football board had "lived a lavish lifestyle".

Fuller, now living in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was granted conditional bail and has to surrender his passport ahead of his sentence next month while a pre-sentence report is prepared.

1st September 2008: We have been asked to point out that Lyndon Fuller did not at any point live in Magor as stated in this article.