Two-faced 'One Jag Prescott'

by JAMES TOZER, Daily Mail

Until recently, boasting about a physical resemblance to John Prescott might have seemed a poor strategy for sweeping women off their feet.

But even before Mr Prescott's affair with his secretary was exposed, it was proving a winner for David King with lonely hearts he met through an Internet dating agency.

Claiming to be the Deputy Prime Minister's cousin and playing up his striking similarity to 'Two Jags', the 61-year-old even turned up to meet them in a red Jaguar. But just

as Mr Prescott's womanising ways were finally exposed, King's luck also ran out and yesterday he was facing jail after being unmasked as a conman who preyed on the vulnerable.

Perhaps, in hindsight, the literary pretensions of someone claiming kinship with a politician known for mangling the English language should have set alarm bells ringing for his victims.

For not only was the Prescott story total fiction, King also swindled the women out of thousands of pounds by claiming he needed

help to have a book of religious poetry published.

Twice-married Monica Walford, 51, met King through the online agency Dating Direct and eventually handed over £9,000 of her savings to help his book, The Revelations of St John the Divine, see the light of day.

'He used to say he was a cousin of John Prescott and I had no reason to disbelieve him,' she said yesterday. 'He looked just like Prescott and even had the Jag to match.

'I was in love with him. He said all the right things. He proposed and promised me an Indian gold engagement ring.'

But when no contract for their financial agreement materialised, Miss Walford, from Stafford, became suspicious and asked for her money back.

Unable to get in touch with King, she discovered through his brother that, to her horror, he had gone on holiday with another woman.

'I was a wreck, I felt really stupid,' she said.

She contacted the BBC consumer programme Watchdog in 2004 and discovered that another of King's victims had already reported the conman.

Anthea Major, a 55-year-old nurse from Preston, had agreed to hand over £1,800 to King in response to the same story.

'He spent Christmas with me and

my two children and I asked him to live with me,' she said. 'He said we would get married at Easter.'

But it turned into a similar tale of disappointment. Their relationship petered out and she did not see her money again.

'I felt very stupid, but it was reassuring to know I was not the only woman he had fooled,' Mrs Major said yesterday.

'He swept me off my feet but he is nothing but a nasty conman.'

The two women were speaking after seeing King plead guilty to

four counts of deception involving a total of £10,500.

Nicholas Courtney, prosecuting, told Preston Crown Court that while it was not unusual for people to put misleading details on dating websites, King did so not merely to meet women but to extract money from them.

'He was doing exactly the same thing to both the women at the same time, telling each of them he liked them very much, wanted a long-term relationship and wanted to marry them, at the same

time interesting them in his book and getting money from them,' he said.

Mr Courtney said King, who lives on a canal boat moored near Leigh, Greater Manchester, had previously been convicted on forgery and deception charges of a similar nature.

King was bailed until next month but Judge Stuart Baker told him: 'The most likely outcome will be an immediate prison sentence.'

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