I found the truth about my new boyfriend on Facebook - it shocked me

A prolific fraudster who scammed women out of thousands of pounds through false promises of love and a luxurious lifestyle is currently serving the latest of prison sentences - and police believe there may be hundreds of victims still living with the consequences of his lies.

For the last 20 years, Raymond McDonald, 51, from Country Durham has been in and out of jail a number of times and is believed to be one of Britain's most prolific romance fraudsters.

This was first when he was sentenced for fraud in 2003 before beginning to do romance scams.

Having left prison in December last year, he soon started seeing several women at the same time who he met through dating sites.

He cheated them out of money and even tried to marry one of the victims.

However, it didn't take long before he was back in jail in August following more scamming leaving his victims with to pick up the pieces.

Those women have now decided to speak out, and have described to the BBC the level of trauma they have felt similar to that of sexual assault and domestic abuse.

One of the victims who spoke to the broadcaster said they first met McDonald last December through a dating site.

He told her he was working over Christmas in a secretive military role, training foreign soldiers, but wanted to stay in touch with her during the festive season.

The woman recounted: '(He) just made you feel, I don't know, wanted. Special. I hadn't been in a relationship for such a long time. I suppose in hindsight, it was what I wanted to hear.'

However it later turned out that McDonald wasn't just talking to Paula, he formed relationships with several women, arranging to meet and telling them he was newly divorced and starting a new job.

One claimed McDonald had told her he needed to be on shift at the probation service in the evenings - when actually he was reporting himself to probation.

All the women who came forward described him as warm, genuine and even vulnerable at first.

However, in the midst of all this, he was taking money from them to pay for things that would never materialise - like luxury items or house deposits - while his victims believed he had property abroad as well as fancy cars.

While he maintained the relationship, McDonald travelled to the Middle East to marry his partner, who he had only been in a relationship with for weeks.

Police believe McDonald paid for the trip using money scammed from other victims while making arrangements and showing his partner fake evidence their marriage was legal under local law.

She never had a reason to think it was all a sham but as they returned from their 'honeymoon' in March - just four months after he left prison.

Read More

Serial fraudster, 45, who met his eighth victim on day release from prison and left her heartbroken and £78,000 in debt is jailed for four years 

However, McDonald wasn't fooling everyone, as some of them had started to grow suspicious of who he was, with Paula concerned enough to use Clare's Law, which can be used by people to request information about a partner's previous offending.

Another victim also began to question his victims after he pressured her to pay him more money to bargain luxury gods that never appeared and accepted a friend's proposition to post about him in a Facebook group called 'Are We Dating The Same Guy?' - and the responses she got were shocking.

One of the users showed the victim a newspaper article in which McDonald is described as 'gutless' which was seen by his victim.

Whilst her new husband was sitting in another room, she read the comments and said 'My world just fell.'

She made an excuse to leave and instantly called the police, and he was arrested hours later.

His own mother describes him as a 'b***** big liar' and a 'full sham' revealing that he told women he duped that she had died and even pretended to go to her funeral on Valentine's Day.

She also claimed that McDonald had even gathered his relatives once, who he also had a habit of lying to - claiming that he was dying.

'I've had two nervous breakdowns because of him' she added.

So who is the real Raymond McDonald?

He was dishonourably charged from the army in 2000 and briefly worked in a supermarket and at a factory packing chickens but soon began committing fraud.

He got his first prison term in 2003, followed by a suspended sentence four years later, on top of four more jail stints.

Released during the term he was given in 2019, he immediately began scamming another woman and was recalled to prison.

In the latest case, within the two weeks of his release last December, he was back on dating sites picking targets, devastating women once they found the truth.

One said: 'My whole world fell apart.'

Another said that once detectives turned up to her front door and explained what had happened, saying she 'couldn't get out of bed'.

Detective Constable Saad Sheban, the latest to put the fraudster behind bars described him as a 'serial scammer' who 'preys on women' looking to find a 'life companion'.

'People normally think 'dangerous' is somebody who can physically hurt you, make you bleed, but Raymond hurts people emotionally.'

Det Con Sheban added there could be 'hundreds' of more victims living with the consequences of McDonad's lies.

Dr Elisabeth Carter, who advises police on offenders' grooming methods said victims often feel shame.

She said: 'They've not only lost their money. This person was right in front of them lying to their face.'

She added the impact on victims of romance fraud is 'akin to the psychological impact of rape and other types of sexual abuse'.

Following the latest arrest in March, McDonald initially denied all wrongdoing but later pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud by false representation and was jailed for four and half years at New Castle Crown Court in August.

The judge noted the emotional impact on the women was much greater than the financial loss suffered.