Victim of 'Shrek' extortionist lost home and horse after being conned

Question

The victim of a shameless extortionist who conned her out of more than £35,000 after meeting him on a dating website says he ruined her life. 

Peter Berry, 51, befriended his victims through online dating sites before persuading them to pump cash into fake business investments. 

He was jailed for conning women out of thousands of pounds and is now behind bars again after duping three more women in an online scam.

A court heard he went on to spend the cash on sporting equipment, underwater cameras and a personalised registration plate bearing the number 666.











Peter Berry has been jailed for eight years after conning women out of cash in a romance scam. After he was released from prison for the case tried in 2010, he was spotted by police sporting a beard and faking an eastern European accent

Now, one his victims has revealed the full extent of his cruel manipulations.

Joanne Clifford, 46, from Swindon, was scammed out of £30,000 after meeting Berry on the matchmaking website Plenty of Fish in November 2012. 

As a result she was forced to sell her home and her beloved horse, leaving her life in ruins. 

She claims she now struggles to trust people, fearing they will try and con her like Berry did. 

She said: 'He's a monster for what he did to me.'




Joanne Clifford offered Berry money when he claimed there was 'a cock up at work and that he was in trouble and needed £200,000'

Speaking to The Sun, she said: 'He looks just like Shrek - the only difference is that he isn't green.  I can't believe I was sucked in by this snake.'

She said that unlike other men she chatted to on the dating site, he was not 'sleazy' - although she admitted she was taken aback by his 'fat and ugly' looks after agreeing to meet.

She added: 'I liked him as a person - I didn't feel threatened [by him]. He wasn't a predator, he was playing the long game.' 

He embarked on his latest crime spree after he was released early from a five-year jail term, which he was given in 2010 for 19 fraud offences.

Following that conviction, one of his victims - Sara Terry - compared him to Shrek. 

She said she fell for Trang chủ Ko66 his 'warm eyes' but added: 'He was 6ft 2in, weighed about 20 stone and looked like the cartoon character Shrek.' 


After serving just two years he was released on licence and quickly started where he had left off, fleecing three more women between October 2012 and October 2013.




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Berry was spotted in a London bar sporting a thick beard and talking in an Eastern European accent after police appealed for information on him in 2014.

Detectives believe he may have swindled up to £2million from more than 100 women during his career of crime after targets included a lawyer, GP and a fund manager, with one investigator saying Berry 'had a PhD in deception'.




Berry, a yachtsman, set a new world record in May 2001, skippering the Netergy.com trimaran from Plymouth to La Rochelle 10 hours faster than anyone before him





Pictured are Laura Hudson (left), Sara Terry (centre) and Mabel Arnill (right)

As Berry was jailed for eight years, it emerged that:


Berry posed as a Harvard graduate with a PhD in physics to con lab technician Kate Peel

He duped women to plunge thousands into fake business investment opportunities

The fraudster was freed early from a five-year jail term for similar offences - only to promptly start conning fresh targets

Detectives fear the fraudster may have conned as much as £2million from more than 100 female victims

The yachtsman set a new world record in May 2001, skippering the Netergy.com trimaran from Plymouth to La Rochelle 10 hours faster than anyone before him - only to smash his own record the following year

Berry also persuaded victims to lend him money through extravagant lies including needing to help friends trapped in the Himalayas and conned one woman out of £1,000 after claiming he needed to raise £50,000 to build ski chalets.

He blew almost £12,000 on Barclaycard and Morgan Stanley credit cards after applying for them in the name of his elderly mother, Elizabeth Berry. 











One victim, Kate Peel (left), gave Berry the benefit of the doubt and stayed in touch until November 2013 when she was approached by Sussex Police. Joanne Clifford (right) was sympathetic when Berry approached her about money problems during the scam





Christine Gearing was fleeced out of £15,000 after moving to a flat in East Preston, Sussex



He was finally found by police living at a house with a wife in the New Forest in October 2015 - and she knew the crook as ‘Jonathan Jones', jurors heard.

Berry was then returned to jail to serve out the remainder of his five year sentence.

His latest trial heard how he posed as a successful businessman, kayaker and Harvard University graduate to ensnare his latest victims following his release from jail in 2012.

The Cornwall-born conman, who claimed he had to live in a tent after he was let out of prison, insisted the three women had all agreed to lend him cash.

Berry's latest ploy was to try and get his case moved from Inner London Crown Court down to Lewes Crown Court after complaining about the poor air quality in the capital.

He claimed he suffers from ‘acute brittle asthma' which means the London air quality can cause him to fall sleep.