Conman first unmasked in the 90s is jailed again after duping vulnerable women online using fake heart attacks and ‘broken’ cashpoints
Fraudster we caught in 1998 is back in jail
AS prospective suitors go, he was very much a catch.
Well-spoken and smartly-dressed, he looked every inch the interior decorator for billionaire property developers — a job he took pride in doing.
He was wealthy too, earning vast sums he shrewdly put away in offshore accounts, saved up for gilded retirement.
No wonder women wanted to be with the silver-haired big shot when they read his profile on dating sites or got chatting to him face to face.
But this 52-year-old was none of these things. David Coombs was a charlatan, a manipulative con artist.
He was an out-of-work painter and decorator who this week began a four-year jail sentence after admitting duping vulnerable women out of nearly £60,000.
One notable con saw him fleece a woman of her savings after taking her to lunch at London’s swanky Claridge’s hotel.
After claiming he had left his wallet in his office he persuaded his date to let the hotel swipe her credit card. He then ran up a bill of £4,237 for lunch and drinks and booked himself a room.
He even swindled his own mother, Barbara, out of around £1,000 — but some of his tactics were even more despicable.
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Often he went to hospital claiming to be suffering a heart attack — so he could target women visiting sick relatives.
In doing so and allegedly faking his symptoms, he would also get a nice free hospital bed for a night or two.
This week at a court in his home town Southampton his web of lies unravelled as his victims finally got their revenge.
But while the story shocked the nation, for hundreds of other women it was a case of “here we go again”.
Because Coombs has form.
Nearly 20 years ago The Sun exposed how the cruel trickster bedded more than 200 women in Norway, fleecing them of more than £100,000 in cash and jewellery.
British women are ugly and difficult to deal with
In 1998, when we first revealed him to be a pathological liar, he was 34 and wooed his victims in bars and cafes.
His actions saw him thrown out of Norway not just once but FOUR times. One of his Norwegian victims even put up posters warning women to stay away from him.
By 2002 he was still telling Norwegian newspapers that he planned to go back there, because British women were simply not up to his standards.
He sneered: “British women are both ugly and difficult to deal with. It’s almost like they ought to pay to be allowed to be seem with me.”
But he eventually decided they were good enough to be conned.
Two decades on he employed new tactics, using online dating sites such as Smooch.com and his hospital fakery to find new victims.
The predator closed in on Jill Salsbury, 54, when she was visiting her seriously ill father in hospital in Bournemouth.
She recalls: “I was vulnerable because it looked like my father was going to die.
“He latched on to me and convinced me to go out for a meal with him, but I rejected him to start with. I just didn’t fancy him. But he hounded me then grew on me and became the person I wanted him to be.”
On their first date, Coombs claimed a cash machine had “swallowed” his debit card and asked if he could borrow some money. Jill gave him £300.
He later asked if he could stay at her place, claiming he was in the process of buying a £3.5million mansion, but that there had been a delay in transferring the money from his offshore bank account.
He even took her on a tour of the luxury home he said he was buying.
She agreed and let him stay. While there he stole £6,000 in jewellery and cash.
He used almost the same tactics with hypnotherapist Carol Board, 52, who was visiting a friend in Poole hospital.
Again the devious conman claimed to be suffering from a heart attack — and ended up leaving his victim homeless.
Mother-of-four Carol remembers: “He was wheeling my friend around the hospital when she needed to go somewhere.
“He seemed a kind, charming man. He’d heard the tenancy agreement on my home was due to end and that I was looking for a bigger place.
“Coombs told me he was living with a friend who was a property developer and that he had a home he wanted to sell but may be happy to rent to us. The next day he said his friend was happy to rent it to us for £1,000 a month.
"He described the property in great detail. He said it was a metal-gated home with a long drive, four bedrooms and three reception rooms.
“I don’t know why, but I believed him.”
Once Carol handed over £500 as a deposit, Coombs started to make excuses as to why he could not give her the keys.
It meant Carol had nowhere to move to and ended up homeless, while her children were forced to sleep on other people’s sofas.
Carol, whose relationship with Coombs never progressed past friendship, stayed with various friends until eventually she found a cramped, two-bedroom flat.
She says: “David’s actions made us homeless. I’m self-employed and couldn’t work from home when we were in the flat. It was a horrendous time.”
Carol reported Coombs to police a week before becoming homeless, and they confirmed they were already investigating the conman.
She says: “I felt sick to my stomach. I was embarrassed and humiliated because I felt I had been stupid.
“To look for people in a hospital then use them like this is disgusting. It makes it even more awful.”
Coombs also used dating websites including Smooch, which is where Joanne Mante thought she had found her perfect man.
Eloquent Coombs told her he worked for the billionaire Candy brothers, Christian and Nick — who is married to former Neighbours star Holly Valance — designing interiors for their luxury property portfolio.
She says: “We spoke a lot on the phone for a few weeks before meeting. He was well spoken and seemed really genuine.”
He’d been travelling around the country pretending to have heart attacks
But she became suspicious when he kept asking to crash on her sofa despite his “wealth”.
Joanne says: “David showed me photos of some of the work he said had done for Candy & Candy in Mayfair. I was a bit suspicious so I rang the company.”
She was told he did not work there and later the firm called to tell her he had never worked there “and had actually been in prison for fraud.”
She ditched him, but it was angry Jill Salsbury who actually brought him to justice.
After he had stolen £6,000 from her she contacted cops, who told her there was already a warrant for his arrest — and that she was not the only woman he had conned after meeting in hospital.
That was what really enraged her. She said: “He’d been travelling around the country pretending to have heart attacks.
“He would discharge himself after 24 or 48 hours, by which time he’d dug his claws into an unsuspecting victim.”
Jill then looked on the internet and saw The Sun’s story about the Norwegian cons.
She said: “I was furious. He’s very crafty, like a character out of EastEnders or Desperate Housewives.”
Jill decided to set Coombs up. She persuaded him to meet her in Bournemouth and arranged for cops to swoop.
Now even though he is behind bars, Jill worries about what he will do when he is released.
She said: “He’s spent his whole life lying to women and tricking them out of money.
“He obviously doesn’t know how to do anything else. The thought of him coming out and doing this again makes me feel sick.”
HOW SUN FIRST TOLD OF HIS LIES
IN April 1998, The Sun told how Coombs boasted of bedding 227 girls and tricking them out of a fortune.
He had had sex with lonely women while living in Bergen, in the west of Norway, before fleecing them of cash and jewellery worth a total of £100,000. He bragged: “Norwegian women are easy and with charm and good sex they open their handbags.” Police kept trying to deport him but he kept coming back. In desperation they even plastered his photo across Norway’s top newspaper under the headline: “Impossible to get rid of”. One of his victims also put up posters warning women to keep away. Coombs had been booted out of Norway four times as cops had 63 complaints from tricked lovers, including Kjersi Feste and Rita Stedje, who he took £500 from. But he kept sneaking back. He was also wanted in Finland. His tactic involved pretending to be a pilot or architect and then conning his victims into funding his high life. Coombs, who was pictured dating women he would then go on to defraud, always held on to conquests’ business cards to keep a tally. He was never prosecuted in Scandinavia because he did not break their laws on deception, which are less strict than in the UK. One of his Norwegian victims, Kari Masterson, warned other women: “If you meet him, run home, lock the door and phone the police.”