‘Riot police’ fantasist gets five years
A fantasist who blogged about his experiences as a senior police officer during last summer’s London riots has been jailed for five years for fraud after being exposed as a serial liar and a love rat.
Ellis Ward, 29, gained a massive following with his postings about life as a Metropolitan Police inspector on the streets of London tackling rioters and looters. His musings on Twitter were followed up by several newspapers, which included the Daily Telegraph paying him £600 for a column called On the frontline.
Ward had also posed as an Army major who had been injured in Iraq and worked at the United States, and used duped three women out of more than £40,000. Ward, of Bishop’s Cleeve, near Cheltenham, was jailed for five years yesterday after admitting 18 charges of fraud.
Judge Peter Ralls, sitting at Winchester Crown Court, told him: “You engaged yourself in a deception of quite staggering complexity.”