A man who took advantage of five women looking for love online, including a Kidderminster police officer, conning them out of thousands of pounds and abusing their trust, has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

Matthew Samuels was handed the sentence when he appeared at Worcester Crown Court on Friday (October 9) having been found guilty of eight counts of fraud.

Samuels had previously pleaded guilty to impersonating a barrister on December 8 2014.

The conman met his five victims, including Detective Constable Nicola Hampshire - who was then using her married name of Bull - through internet dating sites and committed the offences between January 2011 and March 2015.

In Miss Hampshire's case, she began taking money from her accounts to give to the 50-year-old, who had told her he was a millionaire's son and was paying £4,000 a month in child support.

Samuels, of Broadway Grove, Worcester, had a total of £11,856 from the police officer.

Miss Hampshire said she first had contact with Samuels in April 2011 after they began talking to each other on matchaffinity.com.

They met up at the Fox pub in Chaddesley Corbett, on May 1, but he was late, claiming to have been working on his boat.

He told her he was a managing director of a car business and had eight children. She said he also told her he helped businesses that were in trouble, that he had a personal assistant called Vicky, had an interest in a company that staged large scale balloon displays, a debt collecting agency and a villa in Portugal.

"I thought that he was easy to talk to - a nice guy, quite friendly," said Miss Hampshire.

But then, within six weeks of meeting her, he told her he had gone to Crewe and he phoned her to say his briefcase, containing all his bank cards, had been stolen while he was at a petrol station.

He said he had no access to any funds and she offered to lend him money until he got his new bank cards.

Miss Hampshire laughed as she told the jury it was "not a gift".

Thinking she could trust him because he was a "man of means" and would be repaid, she withdrew a total of £650.

Then, on May 19 2011, he was "quite panicky" and told her he had a demand from the Inland Revenue for £46,000.

She said he told her his father was going to sell a car to raise some of the money but he still needed about £7,000 to make up the balance.

Miss Hampshire withdrew amounts from various accounts, totalling £3,290.

She also let him have her M&S credit card and later statements showed it had been used at grocery stores and for two vehicle rentals without her knowledge.

In other cases of Samuels' sophisticated defrauding, he would persuade women to set up car companies as the legal head while he ran them. He would also use finance deals and steal from his victims, eventually leaving when the debt ran too high. In some instances, he would persuade women to invest money with him. One fraud offence related to the mother of a woman Samuels met online, who he defrauded by a total of £110,000 after advising her that he could invest her money for greater return. In fact he pocketed the money and spent it on himself.

Samuels managed simultaneous relationships, sometimes seeing three women in one day, and used his job as a car dealer to cover his absences from home from his then partner.

Samuels would sometimes use the names Matthew Copeland and David Copeland and has also falsely stated that he was a barrister, solicitor, financial advisor, a volunteer who assisted offenders and a medical surgeon specialising in knee surgery.

DS Tim Powell, of Hereford CID, said: "This sentence is the culmination of a thorough and detailed investigation.

"I would particularly like to pay tribute to the women who have been defrauded by Samuels, they have shown great courage in speaking out about their experiences in order to bring this man to justice.

"Whilst Samuels was buying expensive cars, his victims were facing crushing debt; whilst he was holidaying in the south of France or taking trips to Paris, his other victims were being blacklisted. He lied and deflected all blame onto them during this investigation, taking no responsibility for their positions at all.

"During his interviews he tried to intimidate the officers; stating that he knew people 'in high places'. In the end Samuels has been shown to be nothing more than a thief who would employ any lie to live a lifestyle funded by other people's money.

"Once he had their money he was setting up his next target. Samuels saw these women as nothing more than a means to fund his lifestyle."

Following his conviction, the Economic Crime Unit of Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police will look to establish Samuels' available assets in order to provide some restitution, in the form of compensation, for the victims of his criminality utilising Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 legislation.

Samuels was found not guilty of two counts of fraud. On one other count of fraud the jury was directed by the judge to find him not guilty.

He was sentenced to eight years in prison in total for the fraud offences and three months in prison for impersonating a barrister, to run concurrently. An indefinite restraining order was put in place by the judge preventing Samuels from contacting any of his victims.