A SINGLE mum today told how she was befriended by bogus doctor Paul Bint - and described him as the most convincing liar she had ever met.
School dinner lady Anita Scott met Bint on an innocent family day out in Corporation Park, Blackburn.
But now she shudders when she thinks of how he told her a catalogue of lies and played with her children.
Her revelations came as a Sunday newspaper labelled Bint Britain's most dangerous man and told how he tried to sell his story to a reporter in the White Bear pub, Barrowford, after absconding from a Blackburn bail hostel.
Bint introduced himself to Anita and her family as Lachlan Gates - the name the Lancashire Evening Telegraph revealed he was trying to change to by deed poll to continue his life of deception.
Anita, of Saunders Road, Blackburn, said: "It was Sunday July 11 and I was in the park with the children, sitting on a blanket watching them play.
"This man came over and started chatting to me and asked if he could sit down. He told me his name was Lachlan Gates and that he lived in London. He said he worked for BSkyB and had bought his parents a cottage in Darwen.
"At first he seemed really genuine and nice and he got on great with my children. So at the end of the day I invited him back to my house. He told me all about himself and his life, and said he drove a Porsche.
"I was tired so I went upstairs to watch TV and I left him playing with my children downstairs. I feel sick when I think about leaving my children with that madman."
The next day Bint bombarded Anita with calls and offered to cook a meal for her and her sons Zachary, 10, and Cal, eight. She said: "I became suspicious when he turned up without his car.
"He said he'd parked it at a health club on Montague Street, but I didn't believe him.
"So my friend went round to look and the car wasn't there.
"He'd been calling himself 'the new man in my life' and I thought things were going too fast and by this stage I knew he was a liar.
"I told him I didn't want to get involved with anyone and he left.
"I didn't see him again until four days later when he turned up at my house at 8.30am saying he was going to a business meeting.
"But I never saw him again after that until my brother brought the Evening Telegraph round and I saw his picture.
"I can understand why hospitals and other people have been conned by him because his lies are so convincing.
"I feel fooled but I am just relieved he is back in prison where he belongs, away from me and my children."
Bint was jailed in October 1994 after a series of thefts and deceptions at hospitals.
He had tried to con his way into Blackburn Royal Infirmary in December 1993 by asking for a doctor's bleeper.
And at the Royal Preston Hospital he tricked his way into the renal unit and sent a patient for treatment.
He was released from prison on licence nearly five weeks ago after serving time for other offences.
But he sparked a massive manhunt and hospitals across the country were put on red alert when he absconded from a Blackburn bail hostel.
He was recaptured by police in Barrowford last Wednesday and returned to Preston Prison.
Anita Scott said: "That day when we first met him in the park he must have just been released from prison. It makes me feel sick that that man was in my house."
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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