A Newry woman has warned people to be on the lookout for an alleged serial fraudster after he "infiltrated" her life and conned her out of thousands of pounds by posing as a film industry worker.
"Normally the way my business works, someone books and they pay up front but if you're dealing with corporate it's slightly different," the woman explained. He had come a day early and Anna's son Mark was with her when she arrived at the apartment on the Thursday to carry out some minor maintenance work.
In the meantime, she had also received an email saying that the family was invited for the studio tour, with a mocked up letter from Paddington Bear promising "tea and marmalade" for the whole family when they got there. He claimed he had a husband, "Chris", who was working with police in England on the Nicola Bully case.
All the while, "Scott's" lies were continuing to pile up - he told Anna he had reached out to industry colleagues to recommend her apartments as a great location. She asked "Scott" had they performed an ECG at the health centre as she knew where the health centre was and what facilities they would have.
She was able to check CCTV images in the apartment that showed "Scott" receiving the call from her at 13.52pm, then leaving the building in a lift with two suitcases and a bag by 14.10pm. That started to tally with stories Matthew had told Anna previously, about being out at around 2 or 3am at night "looking for cigarettes" and she fears he may have been targeting men while staying at her apartments.