Blair flat fraudster jailed for building project scam.

A SERIAL conman linked to a Cherie Blair property deal five years ago and an earlier 'miracle diet' scam based in Knowsley has been jailed in Australia.

Peter Foster, 45, was given a four-and-a-half year sentence at the Supreme Court in Brisbane after pleading guilty to a money laundering charge.

It related to fraudulently obtaining just over pounds 120,000 from the Bank of the Federated States of Micronesia.

The court was told Foster, who has previous convictions for fraud, took out a loan to develop a tourist resort on an island near Fiji. But he provided false documents and false photographs so he could use the money for other purposes, including paying outstanding rent on a girlfriend's house on Australia's Gold Coast.

The court was told that at one stage Foster took a photograph of another work site, claiming it to be his project.

Australia-born Foster, who has served jail terms in Australia, Britain and the United States, mostly for fraud, was the subject of intense media scrutiny after he helped Mrs Blair to buy two flats in Bristol.

But he had also hit the headlines in 1988 when he persuaded Slimmer of the Year Michelle Deakin, who then lived in Huyton, to endorse a so-called 'miracle diet.' However, the product was nothing more than the slimming aid guar gum.

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Peter Foster