• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Page 30 Daily Mail, Tuesday, July 28, 2020 Daily Mail, Tuesday, July 28, 2020 Page 31 It’s the chapter you WON’T read in a new by Frances memoir touted by fraudster Peter Foster: Hardy How he ruined the life of the teenage diet E T E R F O S ter — emollient, duplicitous and utterly without principle queen he groomed, then abandoned. Here, — is one of the world’s most accomplished conmen. PHe famously duped Page 3 girl Sam Fox, she tells her story for the first time – and inveigled his way into the trust of the then Prime Minister’s wife Cherie Blair and persuaded the Duchess of York to endorse his bogus slimming products. claims he left her pregnant with twins… But few people outside her home city of Liverpool know the story of former Young Slimmer of the Year Michele Deakin, the The beauty and the baddie: Peter Foster with former Page 3 girl impressionable and starstruck teenager he Sam Fox, whom he was dating when he first met Michele hoodwinked and deceived more monstrously than any of the thousands of appearing on TV shows, promoting us all. I think the shock and stress victims of his many scams. his slimming aid alongside her of it made Dad ill — shortly after Foster has earned millions from defraud­ Deakin Diet and falsely claiming he died of a heart attack — and for ing the gullible, but his crimes against she had lost 12 st with the help of me it was just horrific.’ Michele, now 51, were far more heinous. the granules. Worse was to come. Trading ‘I was a virgin when I met him and he After her first meeting with Standards raided the Deakins’ groomed me, seduced me and proposed to Foster, she remained with him and home. Michele was charged with me,’ she tells me. ‘I loved him and thought says she did not return home to conspiracy (with Foster) to offer he was this amazing, charismatic person. Liverpool for almost two years. the Deakin Diet under a false But he promised me the Earth and ‘I was given the main bedroom in trade description. delivered nothing. his house with a hot tub, Jacuzzi At Liverpool Crown Court, on the ‘Then he destroyed my good name and and en-suite. It was unbelievable. advice of her lawyers, she pleaded Final ‘He took me to posh restaurants guilty. But she stood in the dock left me standing alone in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court pregnant with his and London casinos. He’d flash the twins. He never saw them and now he cash and give huge tips. He’d give denies they are his. I brought them up me thousands of pounds worth of alone without a penny from him and lived chips and I’d gamble and lose ‘I was pregnant as a virtual recluse. them all. ‘Every day has been a battle, but I’ve ‘He sent me on shopping sprees coped,’ she smiles ruefully. ‘Perhaps I’m with wads of cash with his security and scared, but stronger than I thought.’ guard. I had a rail of Dior and Michele is speaking for the first time now, Versace dresses in my bedroom I kept it secret’ exclusively to the Mail, as Foster, 57, who and mink coats. It was a totally has served multiple prison sentences for different world from the one I’d fraud, announces his intention to write his CRUEL known and I was blown away.’ autobiography while making the improb­ What Michele did not realise, alone as Foster had absconded. able declaration that he has ‘reformed’. I however, was that she was Foster’s (The law did not catch up with him ask Michele if she thinks he is capable of cash cow. Pre-paid orders for his for five years and he was imprisoned slimming granules — which it later for the offence for two years emerged were made from guar in 1996.) gum and merely induced flatulence It was as she stood in the ‘That man has — were flooding in thanks to her dock that Michele realised she endorsement of them. was pregnant. He had also seduced Michele. ‘I’d missed my period. I was being more faces than a She now believes he was two- sick. I was scared but I just kept it timing her with Sam Fox. ‘We’d secret,’ she recalls. ‘I felt ashamed town hall clock ’ of been out for the evening to a about the fat con, scared about restaurant, had a drink. I was a the future. Everything I’d dreamed ONE/REX SECRET T virgin, totally innocent and he of had crumbled to dust.’ rehabilitation. She laughs. She has a charmed me,’ she says. He set the She was given a six-month prison Liverpudlian’s wry humour. scene at his house in Hadley Wood sentence, suspended for two years. ‘That man has more faces than a town with champagne, flowers Her daughters were born in 1991 and candles. and she faced life as a lone parent hall clock,’ she says. ‘Do I think he’s RESS/DENNISS reformed? No, it’s baloney. He’s a narcissist. P ‘Afterwards, he proposed to me. of twins. He exploits other people without any guilt He bought me a ring with a huge, ‘I thought, “How the hell will I or shame and he believes his own lies. cope?” ’ she says. But I did. I got ‘He’s still conning people out of millions by. I worked for 12 years as a but no prosecution seems to stick. I’d like Cherie Blair’s hotel receptionist.’ to confront him. He ruined me but I want ‘He had such Foster, meanwhile, was him to know I’m not broken.’ uncontactable. When the twins Foster, an Australian, drives an open­top were three, Michele secured a Bentley sports car, lives in a luxury water­ ONES/BRENDANBIERNE/UK charisma, like a meeting — typically stage- side mansion on Queensland’s Gold Coast J managed and ostentatious — with ONY and spends as ostentatiously as he ever T magic power’ his mother Louise. Michele, her did, thanks to the proceeds of the mum and the twins met her in a estimated £18 million he has allegedly private room at an exclusive hotel fleeced from investors in his latest scam, a in Oxford Street, London. phoney Sports Trading Club. pink Chopard diamond in the ‘There were dozens of cuddly Michele’s means are more modest. She is shape of a heart. toys piled on the table alongside a lone parent, recently separated from her ‘Of course I said yes. He had such an envelope stuffed with thou- husband, and a full­time carer for charisma. It was like a magic sands of pounds in cash,’ says her non­verbal, severely autistic a man as conmanpractised in both acclaim as Young Slimmer of the wildest dreams. Dad, who’d been five­star country house hotel in power. I was so happy.’ Michele. ‘Louise gushed, “The girls son Troy, five. She shares a wheedling and charm. Year. Her secret? ill with cancer, just wanted the Hadley Wood, North London. Pictures: ALANDAVIDSON/AN But Michele barely had time to are princesses! Peter will love detached house on a neat estate in Michele was just 19 when she ‘Sensible eating and exercise,’ best for me and here was Foster ‘An open fire was crackling; wait­ Teen queen: Young Slimmer Michele in 1988. Above, luxuriate in her engagement when them. We will look after you.” ’ Liverpool with mum Esther, 82. first came to his attention. The she says. ‘It was all down to saying he’d pay us £1,000 if we just resses were scurrying around her life of affluence turned to dust. Foster failed to materialise. ‘I At times she struggles to stem privately educated, only child of willpower and determination.’ came to talk to him.’ bringing us drinks. Foster wasn’t from top: Before she lost weight, Foster with ‘People had been complaining to took two big dolls for the girls but tears, which are rarely more than a taxi driver Lenny Deakin and his Michele was the star of an awards Lured by these extravagant there but the scene was set. He Carole Caplin in 2002 and with a policeman in 2000 Trading Standards about the diet left all the money on the table. I blink away. Her twins, born wife Esther, a stay­at­home mum, ceremony at London Zoo where pledges, the family was ensnared. had arranged it all to impress us. granules. Stories had started to decided I didn’t want anything to Rachael and Rebecca in February she was the apple of her doting the paparazzi gathered. ‘I had my A Rolls­Royce Silver Spirit with a ‘He sent his Rolls­Royce to take me. Then he said, “This imagine how she was promised £1,000 a week [which appear in the papers that they’d do with it — or him any more. 1991, are now 29. Rachael is an air parents’ eyes. hair and make­up done, I was all us to his house. It was so opulent, is your house now. My home found the ostenta- never materialised] as long as I sent money and never received the When I contacted Peter Foster he steward with Emirates airways, ‘As an only child I was spoilt dressed up. I said I wanted to help a billionaire’s mansion with a is yours.” tious wealth and the didn’t put on any weight.’ product,’ she says.

Load more

  1

Copy Link