A MARRIED couple who conned a farmer out of £1m after suggesting they were connected to Irish terrorists were jailed yesterday.

A judge heard how travellers Dennis McGinley, 30, and Bianca McGinley, 25, defrauded terrified victims in North Yorkshire, Staffordshire and the Avon and Somerset area, netting £1.9m over three years.

The biggest loser was an unnamed farmer from the outskirts of York who was conned out of £1m, some of which went to buy luxury cars including a Lamborghini.

North Yorkshire Police said the victims were involved in business deals with travellers and Dennis McGinley then came along making demands, purporting to represent interests associated with a “threelettered organisation” from Northern Ireland. Detectives said those involved were terrified by Dennis McGinley.

One father and son, who lost £850,000, did not even speak to each other about what was happening, believing the family would be under direct threat if they spoke.

Two companies were stripped of their assets and closed, police said, and victims were forced to travel around the UK making cash and banking payments at Dennis McGinley’s direction.

The McGinleys admitted conspiracy to defraud between March 1, 2006 and March 18, last year.

Dennis McGinley was sentenced to eight years in prison and his wife, whose maiden name is Broadway, was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

The pair, who are of no fixed address, but are from the travelling community in the Taunton area of Somerset, were arrested following a joint investigation involving the North Yorkshire, Staffordshire and Avon and Somerset police forces.

They were arrested in March last year in Chelmsford, Essex.

Sentencing the couple at Leeds Crown Court, Judge Rodney Grant said the conspiracy was “a carefully planned scheme ruthlessly carried out”, North Yorkshire Police said yesterday.

Speaking after the case, Detective Inspector Adam Harland, who led the North Yorkshire Police investigation, said: “When we were first confronted with the scale of these blackmails, it was hard for all those on the inquiry to understand how anyone could lose £1m and not make some effort to contact the police.

“However, the fear engendered in the victims by Dennis McGinley was so real that they handed over vast amounts of money, representing the benefit from a life’s worth of work, rather than seek help.”

Mr Harland said officers had not recovered most of the cash.