A CONFIDENCE trickster who duped a York widow into handing him £40,554 of her savings has been jailed.

Elderly Marian Cooper believed that failed property developer David Matts was a trusted friend, said Tom Storey prosecuting at York Crown Court.

She even took out a bank loan so she could lend Matts £16,000 capital for a business venture and allowed him to use her bank card.

While she thought she was helping him, he was siphoning money out of her bank account, waylaying the postman to take her bank statements.

He also used bouncing cheques as he tried to persuade Mrs Cooper and her daughter that he would repay the stolen money.

He cheated her for more than a year from August 2001 to January 2003, and continued the con after she confronted him over the bank card thefts, the court heard.

"A real friend would not have done that," Judge Michael Murphy QC told him.

"Like many confidence tricksters, you seem to live in a world that is divorced from reality.

"This loss of £40,000 will be a sore blow to her, not just financially, but to her confidence and her ability to trust people."

Matts went on the run for a year instead of facing 64-year-old Mrs Cooper across the courtroom at his trial on May 5 last year. He was not arrested until earlier this month.

Matts, 46, formerly from near Whitby and now of no fixed address, admitted nine charges of deceiving Mrs Cooper, two theft charges, three charges of using a false instrument with intent against her in December 2002, including using a bouncing £55,000 cheque on Christmas Eve drawn on the account of a woman friend of his, and one unrelated charge of deception involving a man called Graham Squires.

Matts was jailed for three years on top of his current four-month sentence for skipping his trial.

Mr Storey said that in a separate con, Matts took a cheque slip while working at Mr Squire's house and wrote it out to himself.

Then, without permission, he went to Mr Squire's home and masqueraded as the homeowner on the phone to persuade the Money Shop, in Micklegate, York, to cash it. The shop lost £2,900.

Matts's barrister, Nicholas Barker, said his client had had a good job until he handed himself in earlier this month. He wanted to repay the money, but had no income. Matts had not targeted Mrs Cooper because she was vulnerable and had originally met her honestly. He was "gutted" about what had happened to her.

The offences began when Matts' company, First Options, ran into difficulties because he could not run it properly.

Updated: 10:47 Tuesday, April 26, 2005