A fraudster from East Lancs is back behind bars after helping to con a North Yorkshire man out of £410,000 through an advertising scam.

Detectives say Liam Dinsdale, 38, and an accomplice claimed to be from a debt collecting agency acting on behalf of the county court regarding outstanding business advertising costs.

And they pressured their unnamed victim into agreeing to pay regular instalments, using the threat of him having to go to court.

Now Dinsdale, of Varley Street, Colne, who conned a string of other victims across the UK, is starting a five-and-a-half year jail term after being sentenced at Bradford Crown Court for conspiracy to defraud.

But the Lancashire Telegraph can reveal his prison term is not his first for fraud offences.

Back in 2013 he was jailed for more than four years for being the "lieutenant" in a £740,000 publishing scam.

The con involved businessmen and women being sold bogus adverts for non-existent publications, then tricked into believing they had signed up for long-running block bookings.

His most recent partner-in-crime was Wayne Mark McCreery, 50, from Stretford, Greater Manchester, who was jailed for four years in February. Dinsdale's sentencing was postponed after he was taken ill.

Police say Dinsdale and McCreery targeted a small business owner, in his 70s, from Northallerton as part of their swindle, continuing to put pressure on him to make payments from 2015 to 2018.

Further investigations uncovered other victims and the overall loss is estimated at just under £473,000.

Several others pleaded guilty to money laundering as part of the same plot and received suspended prison terms or community sentences.

These included Margaret Townson, 57, of Fern Street, Colne, who was given a 12-month community Order with 150 hours of unpaid work

Det Con Andrew Brodhurst, of North Yorkshire Police, who led the probe, said: “Wayne McCreery and Liam Dinsdale are cruel and calculated individuals who have previously served prison sentences for almost identical frauds in other parts of the country.

“They prey on vulnerable people for their own greed for money at any costs.

“It has been a long and painstaking effort to secure justice for their victims. They have endured a great deal of upset and anguish by these criminals and the people close to them who laundered the money."

Dinsdale's previous fraud had seen his gang make threatening phone calls to those they targeted, then send "bailiffs" to their victims' homes and businesses, and threatened to have their properties repossessed, Preston Crown Court was then told.

The scam was operated under the umbrella of the Publishers’ Investment Bureau (PIB), which rang fraud victims, claiming they could expose bogus publishers who had been plaguing them with demands.