Plenty Of Fish conman who fooled women out of £105,000 by posing as a banker, MI5 spy and lord is jailed for three more years for conning men including Iraq war veteran out of £12,500
- Sebastian Astbury, 42, of Poole, also known as Zac Langley and Andrew Penfold
- Began scamming victims two days after being released from jail for another con
- He has previously posed as Royal Navy officer, Marine and a property developer
- This time Astbury started bogus car leasing firm to swindle thousands of pounds
- He has 13 previous convictions for a total of 89 offences dating back to 2000
Sebastian Astbury (pictured in a custody image from 2019) began scamming victims just two days after being released from jail
A fantasist conman who has spent two decades adopting 20 different aliases scamming victims out of hundreds of thousands of pounds is back in prison.
Sebastian Astbury, 42, of Poole, Dorset, also known as Zac Langley and Andrew Penfold, began scamming his latest victims just two days after being released from jail for a previous con.
He has previously posed as a banker, an MI5 agent, a lord, a Royal Navy officer, a Royal Marine, a property developer, a shipping magnate and a wine maker to hoodwink his victims, mainly women.
This time he started a bogus car leasing firm to swindle thousands of pounds in deposits from unsuspecting customers.
Astbury was released from prison on June 18 last year after serving half of a five-and-a-half year sentence for conning three women he met through dating site Plenty of Fish out of £105,000.
Impersonating an Ministry of Defence intelligence officer, he had persuaded them to buy him two luxury Range Rovers and fork out £20,000 on bogus medical fees.
Sebastian Astbury is pictured when he went by the name of Andrew Penfold on a luxury yacht
Free again, he applied to a judge to have his name changed from Zac Langley to Sebastian Andrew Zachary Mathew Astbury.
Remarkably, permission was granted on July 4 after Astbury swore he was 'going straight'. However, by then he was already conning new victims.
On June 20 he had established a company called Bramshaw's Leasing Ltd in Bournemouth, Dorset, under which he offered new cars.
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The victims believed they were about to get new Mercedes, Volvo or Volkswagen cars under a lease agreement.
But no cars were ever ordered, and Astbury eventually stopped communicating with all of those affected as they desperately tried to call him for information.
In total, he conned four men out of £12,500.
Astbury (pictured when he went by the name of Andrew Penfold) started a bogus car leasing firm to swindle thousands of pounds in deposits from unsuspecting customers
One of the victims, Iraq War veteran Kevin Burgess, who invested money in the 'business', was left 'suicidal' by Astbury's deceit which had triggered his PTSD.
Astbury is pictured in a police mugshot from 2016 when he was known as Zac Langley
In a victim impact statement read by prosecutor Stuart Ellacott, Mr Burgess said: 'I felt I had failed in business and failed my girlfriend. I spiralled out of control. I was suicidal.'
Another victim, Daniel De Vere, had met Astbury at Ford Open Prison in West Sussex.
He said he was 'absolutely gutted' after parting with £800 loaned to him by relatives for a new van in the hope of continuing his previous career as an electrician.
Bournemouth Crown Court heard Astbury has 13 previous convictions for a total of 89 offences - all of which are for dishonesty - dating back to 2000.
In 2001 he ran up bills of £20,000 living a life of luxury by booking into hotels under a false name and tricking friends into giving him money.
Then aged 23, he even entertained the entire cast of a pantomime in a hotel without paying a penny.
Sebastian Astbury's previous convictions for conning his victims
Sebastian Astbury has 13 previous convictions for 89 offences - all of which are for dishonesty - dating back to 2000 - including the following:
2001: Ran up bills of £20,000 living a life of luxury by booking into hotels under a false name and tricking friends into giving him money
2008: Swindled more than £60,000 out of besotted women including a prison officer he had met in jail. He proposed to three different women
2016: Conned three women he met through dating site Plenty of Fish out of £105,000, impersonating a Ministry of Defence intelligence officer
In 2008 he was jailed for four years for swindling more than £60,000 out of besotted women including a woman prison officer he had met in jail.
During that scam, he proposed to three different women, telling them he was an MI5 officer, a radar maker and from the famous Penfold wine family.
He was returned to jail in 2016 for the Plenty of Fish scam. Nick Tucker, defending, said prison does not work for the defendant.
He asked for him to be released from custody to be with his new partner, a primary school teacher who describes him as 'incredibly caring, nurturing and supportive'.
The woman's father even spoke for Astbury in court, offering him a minimum wage job with classic cars.
But the judge saw differently, jailing Astbury for three years and issuing a five year serious crime prevention order.
He was also banned from acting as the director of a company for a decade.
Judge Jonathan Fuller QC, at Bournemouth Crown Court, said that Astbury was a 'heavily convicted and persistent fraudster and a devious and selfish individual who has only money at the forefront of his mind.'
The fellow former inmate Astbury conned also wrote the court to call the defendant a 'career fraudster' and a 'menace to society'.
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