“Hi! I’m the DPP! Let’s Have Sex!”
Will women go out with you if you post as Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions?
Apparently so!
During a six-week campaign of deception Paul Bint, 47, repeatedly wined and dined unsuspecting victims he met through lonely heart ads, while allegedly wandering around with all the trappings of a successful barrister enjoying high-powered connections.
…
London’s Southwark Crown Court was told that apart from telling admirers he was Keir Starmer, QC, the director of public prosecutions, he said he owned a fleet of luxury cars including one used in the James Bond film Goldeneye.
He also allegedly boasted he had socialised with former 007 star Pierce Brosnan, was friends with singer Robbie Williams, and had once been married to British comedy actress Sarah Alexander.
I knew Keir when I interned at Liberty, and afterwards where I helped out a little on the McLibel Trial. He is now married to a former colleague of mine, who clearly must also think him rather dashing.
Indeed, Keir scrubs up rather well, I think:
Paul Bint, by contrast, is not a “dish”:
However, it isn’t Keir Starmer QC the man who turned women’s heads. It is the mere concept of being Keir Starmer QC that is apparently irresistible.
The real Keir Starmer QC would never do this, however:
Altogether, he ”clocked up” five victims, three of them women ”he met either through newspaper dating columns or the internet.
”He then purported to begin friendships with them using this false persona to worm his way into their homes and in some cases into their hearts and their lives,” she added.
Bint, of no fixed address, denies 16 charges allegedly committed between April 27 and May 16 this year.
Nine accuse him of fraud by false representation – one for allegedly cheating a taxi driver of a £60 fare, while the remainder are said to have been committed while systematically milking the bank account of one of his ”conquests”.
Five other counts claim he drove various cars while disqualified. He allegedly pretended he was interested in buying one of them, a £59,000 Audi R8, while the rest were owned by two of the women he targeted.
The genuine Keir Starmer QC would never do this, either:
The barrister said that, about the time Bint was planning a third “conquest” with yet another Sunday Times lonely heart advertiser – again pretending he was the DPP – he was trying to dissuade his first victim from striking up a relationship with somebody else.
“Bint knew she wanted to advance her relationship with the other man and said he had run some checks on him. He said the checks had revealed that person had assaulted his ex-girlfriend on three occasions.
“As a result she cancelled her date with the man and then took a sleeping pill as she was so upset.
“The next morning she woke up early and found Bint in the back garden smoking a cigar. He told her she didn’t want to see what had happened. But she went outside and saw the word ‘bitch’ had been written on the side of her house in white paint. Again she was upset, thinking the other man had done it,” said counsel.
The barrister added that, when arrested, Bint denied any wrongdoing, but allegedly told officers he had used the name Keir Starmer and pretended to be a barrister because “he wanted to”.
Ironically, as Director of Public Prosecutions, the real Keir Starmer QC is nominally in charge of prosecuting this fellow.
Comments
| 14 October 2009, 9:39 am |
Haha, Stuart!
>> He also allegedly boasted he had [...] once been married to British comedy actress Sarah Alexander.
That’s when the lies become unstuck. This would have been easy to verify.
It must have been like 1992 all over again.
| 14 October 2009, 9:40 am |
Interesting that none of them thought it strange that a dpp would be a boastful blinged up shagger.
| 14 October 2009, 9:49 am |
A former DPP was arrested for kerb crawling, and tragically, his wife committed suicide in the aftermath.
| 14 October 2009, 10:00 am |
Yes indeed, Ken Mcdonald was “seeing” a colleague of Keir Starmer’s:
http://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/barristers/kirsty_brimelow.cfm
| 14 October 2009, 10:20 am |
That Kirsty Brimelow is cute enough to make me want to turn to a life of crime.
| 14 October 2009, 10:37 am |
What exciting lives you ‘legal eagles’ live! And there was poor old me thinking it was all about stuffing your pockets with the proceeds of other people’s misery. Goes to show.
(Larkers goes to bookshelves. Takes down book of Hogarth etchings and peers at images of sundry rakes, drunken silks and their doxies. Not so much of a caricature after all.)
What strikes me otherwise about this episode is that any one – several by this account – could have actually thought someone of such obvious delusional traits and bizarre associations could be the D.P.P. in the first place. In its own way it tells one much about where we are now. I suppose the case has concluded, or do we live in a U.S. style era of commenting on the proceedings without having to concern ourselves with due process?
| 14 October 2009, 10:41 am |
When I was doing a stint as a public prosecutor in SA one colleague claimed that women were driven wild by the sight of him wearing nothing but his black gown, and that the office desk was being used for purposes other than reading dockets. (He was very dashing looking.) I did find the office door locked on occasion when I knocked and he called he was busy, and when I took over the office there were personal products in the drawers.
| 14 October 2009, 10:47 am |
Stu… This barrister is standing in the tory open primary for Macclesfield http://www.18redlioncourt.co.uk/index.php/barristers/atkins/182
I think there’s an opportunity for the Bar Society to do a calender, no nudity obviously, just have them pulling their stern court faces.
| 14 October 2009, 10:54 am |
I guess it beats “Hi! I’m the Bishop of Southwark. Its what I do!”.
| 14 October 2009, 11:27 am |
The Tory primary for Bracknell has a few attractive yet stern women as well and they presumably don’t talk funny like they do in Macclesfield…
http://www.bracknellconservatives.com/primary/juliamanning.htm
Didn’t the left have all the pretty ones before? What on earth has happened?
| 14 October 2009, 11:33 am |
This all feels like some (potentially expensive) lawyers’ in-joke.
| 14 October 2009, 11:49 am |
Atkins is a carpet bagger from london with no known connection to the area hoping to parachute into a nice safe seat.
She probably talks normal for Bracknell. In terms of not antagonising the locals
the tory higher ups should probably swap her with that Derbyshire lass you’ve got.
| 14 October 2009, 12:14 pm |
(potentially expensive) good point. What I meant to say of course was ‘alleged carpet bagger from london with no known connection to the area hoping to parachute into a safe seat… As are most of the other candidates… Allegedly.’
| 14 October 2009, 12:50 pm |
“I think there’s an opportunity for the Bar Society to do a calender, no nudity obviously…”
Spoilsport!
| 14 October 2009, 12:57 pm |
“I think there’s an opportunity for the Bar Society to do a calender, no nudity obviously…”
Spoilsport!
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
| 14 October 2009, 1:00 pm |
Some of my friends, who are newly single, have turned to internet dating. To be honest from what they say, it’s a losers’ game, and it costs a lot of money. The women were silly gullible fools, that’s all you can say about them. They must have led very sheltered lives.
| 14 October 2009, 1:37 pm |
“He also allegedly boasted he had socialised with former 007 star Pierce Brosnan”
He does look a lot like Jaws.
| 14 October 2009, 2:08 pm |
Still, it could have been worse… another prospective QC could have done suicide-by-cop.
| 14 October 2009, 4:23 pm |
There was a case in Israel a few years ago of a guy who got to go to bed with lots of women by pretending to be an air force pilot. I think he also got sent down, which I thought was a bit unfair. After all, if people are stupid enough to let you shag them just because they think you’re a bloody air force pilot….
| 14 October 2009, 5:48 pm |
Everybody lies in the beginning of a relationship or at least stretches the truth and yes this guy went way to far but at the same time you should take responsibility for yourself and make sure your not getting ripped off.
| 15 October 2009, 12:17 pm |
I know somone that was caught up in this, and whether they were gullible or not (Sue R) is hardly the point.
Whilst this may seem quite amusing, I can assure you that for those caught up in it it’s not.
Conmen like this don’t just prey on the vulnnerable, they create extraordinary legends that seem plausible.
| 15 October 2009, 3:17 pm |
Here is Kari Ferrell, the Hipster Grifter
http://www.observer.com/2009/style/hipster-grifter
A skilled con-artiste, she appealed to gullible men, who experienced protective compassion and the desire to help this tragic and cash-strapped cancer sufferer [a lie] and, simultaneously, the “unbridled desire of carnall affection,” to quote John Rolfe.
I try and pick up lap dancers by pretending to be Harriet Harman on a rescue mission.