A 19-year-old conman has walked free from court, despite a six year history of using false credit accounts to defraud over £250,000.
James Cameron, who modelled himself on the 2002 film ‘Catch Me If You Can’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio, used false credit cards to systematically scam everyone from chauffeurs to models in order to maintain his entrepreneurial fantasy.
Given a suspended sentence at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, the teenager expressed surprise at the result. Cameron had previously been convicted in 2007 following a series of scams amounting to £250,000.
He first began deceiving at just 13-years-old when he set up a website purporting to sell plasma TVs.
Since then the teenager had been posing as a businessman working under the aliases, James Blake, Blake Cameron and Chris Benson, running up enormous bills on false credit cards wherever he went.
Despite his previous 2007 conviction where, following a £250,000 scam, he was sent to a young offender institution for 6 months, Cameron received only a 50 week suspended sentence and 200 hours of community on Tuesday.
During the Southwark Crown Court trial, the court heard how Cameron led a flamboyant lifestyle involving top models and strip clubs.
He defrauded 11 victims of approximately £82,000 across London. Two other offences were also taken into account, amounting to £21,000.
Prosecutor Charles John-Jules said in court: “He used the services of his victims and basically had no intention to pay for them. He was just using these people to fulfill an apparent fantasy of being a successful entrepreneur.”
Judge James Wadsworth, who gave Cameron the suspended jail term five months ago, said: “If I had known when I first sentenced you that the amount you had defrauded was in the region of £100,000, I have very little doubt indeed that I would have put you straight inside, despite your plea and despite your age.
“And such is your abuse of other people's money and such is your arrogance in doing so, you deserve it.
“However I bear in mind your age and, above all, that in the time that has passed since your last sentence, you have stayed out of trouble.”
After walking free, Cameron said: “Of course I am full of regret and remorse. It's something I began when I was 13 and something I continued to do until I found an alternative, which was education. I have turned over a new leaf and I'm not going to do it again.”
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