A CONMAN from Farnham who duped his wife's family out of hundreds of thousands of pounds by pretending to be a viscount shipping magnate has been jailed for 40 months.

Kirk Brown, a 46-year-old Castle Street resident, switched his name to Vizconde von Hoehen de Bessarabia by deed poll and told people he was due a £400m inheritance.

Blackfriars Crown Court heard he convinced his wife Jodie Young's family that he was the descendent of a little-known European royal family and claimed to own a shipping firm.

Brown persuaded his mother-in-law Nicola Young to invest £150,000 into the fantasy business and his wife's uncle, Richard Birch, to transfer £116,000 into various bogus ventures.

Prosecutor Robert Hutchinson explained how Brown produced increasingly far fetched excuses when his scheme failed, including blaming an employee for embezzling their money with "the Taliban".

"There was always some difficulty and it was never the defendant who was to blame," added Mr Hutchinson.

Judge John Hillen said Brown's "manipulation, the false documentation that you created, the many lies, the many deceptions, [and] the many pretences" meant prison was inevitable.

He continued: "You had assumed the identity of a grandiose aristocrat, even a royal personage. You lived a lie as, you yourself acknowledge. At what point your life became a lie is not clear. It may have been at a very young age.

"You had certainly assumed this grandiose position of an aristocrat or royal personage and you did so in order to deceive, to lie, to control and to manipulate the family of the woman which you were married to."

Brown, who appeared in court dressed in a black trench coat and spoke only to confirm his name and admit four counts of fraud by false representation, was jailed for 40 months on each of the four counts, to be served concurrently.