Women with camcorder nab conman lover

PLYMOUTH, England, March 10 (UPI) -- A British man who conned four women into being his lover was exposed when the women found each other online and confronted him on videotape, authorities said.

Simon Reid, 44, of Plymouth, who swindled two of the women out of more than $28,000, was jailed for 30 months by a Plymouth Crown Court judge after admitting to two charges of fraud.

"You told lies Baron von Munchausen would have been proud of," Judge Kevin De Haan told Reid.

Munchausen was an 18th century German nobleman notorious for telling outrageously far-fetched stories about his adventures after joining the Russian military. His feats, as retold by others, included riding cannonballs, traveling to the moon and escaping from a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair -- or bootstraps, depending on who told the story.

In Reid's case, he spun different stories about himself. He told one woman he was an international businessman, another he was a professional rock climber, a third that his father was terminally ill and a fourth that his son was a Royal Air Force pilot who'd lost three limbs in Afghanistan, The Sun reported.

He was nabbed after suspicious victim Nicola Hillary, 51, searched his name online and found a blog by an ex-girlfriend in the United States, The Sun reported.

It listed his cheating and warned others not to fall for him.

Hillary was then contacted by three other victims -- Jo Ward, from whom Reid stole $27,000; Laura Buckingham, who Reid took for more than $1,600 from to furnish his apartment, and a third woman identified only as June.

They all met in a pub and hatched a plot to trap him, the newspaper said. Reid was lured to Buckingham's house while the others hid upstairs.

One by one they came down to confront him -- all on camcorder -- before calling police, The Sun said.

When they leaped out with the video camera, Reid said: "I think you better call the police," The Mirror reported.

"He just sat there like a trapped animal," Hillary said.