A GRANDMOTHER has told how a con-artist promised to buy her house and stole her money when her back was turned.

Ann Moran thought she had sold her house in Weymouth when Jonathan Mark Byrne came to see it and said he worked for an investment bank and was ready to pay in cash.

Byrne told her his wife had died in a car crash and he wanted to resettle with his daughter close to her grandparents.

When Mrs Moran told him she had just lost her son he gave her a hug and consoled her before looking around her house and taking £50 from her handbag.

Byrne, aged 22, of East Street, Bridport, has been sent to prison for 28 months after stealing cash and bank cards during a series of visits to house vendors in Weymouth and Dorchester.

Mrs Moran, 64, said he came to see her house in Hornbeam Close with an estate agent and later arranged a second visit on an evening on his own.

She said: “When he arrived he was very casual. He leaned on the door frame and gave his name as John Paulson.

“He had this American accent which I could not place so I asked where he was from and he said Georgia.

“I said ‘you don’t have a Georgian accent’ and he said he had been here years and it had watered down.”

“Then he told me his wife had died in a car accident and left him with a six-year-old and he was moving here as it is where her grandparents live.

“He wanted her to go to Sunninghill Preparatory School. He even told me what the fees were.”

Mrs Moran sympathised with Byrne and told him how her son Peter Dowling had died in January, aged 42, from cancer.

“He actually gave me a hug as if to say we are in this together.

“That’s what I can’t forgive him for.”

Byrne then asked to look around on his own before asking to borrow a tape measure. Mrs Moran thinks this is the point that he took the money from her handbag.

She added: “I was actually helping him measure up doors.

“He said ‘don’t worry I’ll pay the full asking price I love it.’ “He didn’t have to do that. He could have said after the second look that he wasn’t bothered. But no he got our hopes up as well.”

Staff at the Wessex Royale Hotel in Dorchester said they couldn’t quite place his accent when Byrne booked in. Byrne left the hotel owing around £200 and when they tried contacting him he eventually phoned back and paid.

Sylvia-Anne Douglas, receptionist, said: “He eventually paid with a card from the Australian Embassy.

“They then rang us and asked why we had charged their card.”