Charity conman who led high life gets three years

A tin-rattling conman who invented a charity to pay off his mortgage, hire prostitutes and buy an executive car was jailed for three years yesterday.

Dean White, a familiar figure outside shops in the North of England, also used his Starlight Fundraising "good cause" for holidays abroad and expensive meals in Harrogate.

An outraged worker from the genuine Starlight Childrens Foundation saw him collecting and alerted the police.

White, 37, of Harrogate, was convicted on 27 charges of going equipped to cheat. Bradford crown court heard that he pocketed £113,000 in three years before he was exposed.

Nicholas Barker, prosecuting, said White had been a genuine charity worker, but had paid only £1,550 to Barnado's and £1,100 to the British Institute for Brain Injured Children during his con.

The recorder, Jennifer Kershaw QC, told him: "You have engaged in a course of deception of individual members of the public who you have misled many, many times into parting company with their money. You have abused their generosity and their public spiritedness."