A disgraced solicitor whose "worldwide" £13 million swindle was said by a judge to be partly responsible for hundreds of former Belling cooker company workers losing their jobs, was jailed for nine years today.

Charles Deacon, 53, former under Sheriff of Stafford, and former nuts and bolts salesman James Fuller, 56, who received a seven-year sentence, defrauded some of Europe's largest firms with an intricate web that ensnared both cash strapped businesses and desperate individuals.

They spun amazing tales of super-power diplomacy, the CIA, MI5 and secret cash reservoirs, and intertwined them with forged letters from then US president George Bush, the American secret service and leading banks.

With the help of now-dead American John Savage, who claimed to be a top CIA director of operations, and some nine other conspirators on both sides of the Atlantic, one victim after another fell into their clutches.

To ensure they had their carefully crafted fiction off pat, Deacon, a former director of Stoke-on-Trent's Theatre Royal, and business associate Fuller, regularly met some of their fellow conspirators to rehearse their lines. Apart from Belling, which plundered its pension fund of more than £2.3 million to qualify for a non-existent loan, and in the process left many of its former employees facing the prospect of reduced pensions, other

companies targeted included Russia's largest cooperative and Finland's biggest food processing company.

Passing sentence at Central London's Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court, Judge Fabian Evans QC told the two men: "The sums of money involved in this case have been quite staggering and have been matched only by the enormity of the lies which you both told."

He said more than 14 million dollars of the fees Deacon swindled from investors and paid into his sacrosanct clients' account at his Newcastle-under-Lyme practice had never been recovered.

"Those fees were paid on the strength of the role which you both hoped would be believed and at the same time, if challenged, be met by a blank response.

"I have absolutely no doubt that you both knew there was no prospect of any money coming from the sources said to be available."

The judge told Deacon he had made a habit of investing imaginary sources of money, adding: "This case has been riddled with forgeries and deceit.

"There is no doubt your lies were so enormous many were taken in."

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