FRAUDSTER Keith Skelton's riches vanished when he was arrested by detectives, a court was told yesterday.

Skelton, 55, had conned finance companies to buy a £2m London house and a £133,808 motorhome, after terrifying his accountant to produce bogus company books.

But after a tip-off from a business associate, he lost his £125,800 deposit on the Richmond house and the luxury van was confiscated, said prosecutor Jeremy Hill-Baker.

Judge John Walford told Skelton, at Teesside Crown Court: "The money that you obtained was squandered in a vulgar and unnecessary display of wealth."

Skelton, of Durham Road, Aycliffe Village, near Darlington, was jailed for two and a half years after he pleaded guilty to ten charges of conspiracy to defraud and obtaining nearly £400,000 by deception, between December 1995 and August 1996.

His accountant, Ronald Semain, 49, of Garden Cottage, West Rainton, Northallerton, was given a six-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after he pleaded guilty to four offences of false accounting.

Michael Donnelly, 36, a graphic designer of Grange Court, Newton Aycliffe, was given a nine-month jail sentence suspended for two years after admitting five charges of conspiracy to defraud