TESCO blackmailer Philip McHugh met his Russian lover while working as an English teacher in Russia in 2003.

She came back to the UK with him where the pair, along with her teenage son and daughter, took up residence in a quiet Clitheroe street.

But, by the spring of last year, their relationship was in trouble and he had run up gambling debts betting on-line.

McHugh was a former Blackburn VAT officer and part-time photography teacher at Nelson and Colne College.

And in 1995, whilst living in Burnley Road, Accrington, he won £3,000 damages after a dispute with the News of the World over false allegations that he was interested in "spanking".

Two investigative reporters posed as photographic models and ran an article accusing him of exploiting women.

He spoke of his two-year nightmare after the article had been published. But he said the money would not compensate him for losing his career, home and his health.

McHugh worked as a charity collector for the Shelter shop in Moor Lane, Clitheroe, three years ago.

McHugh's younger brother Nigel blamed a troubled childhood for his actions and recalled happier times when they formed a punk band, Schoolgirl Bitch in 1977. He said his brother was the bass guitarist and used the stage name, Phil Serious.