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Police have released new photographs of “coma con man” Alan Knight enjoying himself on holiday while he and his wife Helen claimed he was virtually in a vegetative state.

The pair, of Sketty, Swansea, dreamed up the fake serious illness “suffered” by 48-year-old Alan Knight because he faced going to jail for stealing £41,000 from their dementia suffering, 81-year-old neighbour Ivor Richards.

They kept up the pretence he was a quadriplegic and regularly going into comas, for over two years until a police investigation exposed them.

How it was reported at the time:

South Wales Police have now released more pictures of the Knights on holiday, in Aberystwyth and in the West Country, at a time when Helen Knight was seeking the help of Prime Minister David Cameron by letter, claiming the authorities were “forcing” her seriously ill husband to appear before a Crown Court judge when he was unfit to do so.

On holiday in the west of England

(Image: Wales News Service Ltd.)

Enjoying a Twister joke

Enjoying the bracing sea air in Aberystwyth

And all this time he told the authorities he could not move

After the shopping and other footage was produced, Alan Knight finally got four and a half years in jail for milking his elderly neighbour’s bank account at Swansea Crown Court last year.

He admitted to 19 counts of forgery, fraud and theft.

And on Friday at the same court, he and his wife were jailed after they finally owned up that his illnesses were fake by admitting perverting the course of justice.

Our court report:

Bizarrely, Knight, who appeared via video link from Parc Prison, Bridgend, appeared still be in a wheelchair. He got 14 months on top of his existing sentence.

His wife wept as she was led to the cells to begin a 10 month sentence.

Prosecutor Jim Davis said Alan Knight initially told doctors he had been poisoned when he was first summoned to court in 2012.

He said his wife told police he would “lie on a sofa all day in constant pain unable to move unaided”.

The court also heard that despite appearing in court as virtually unable to move, Knight had no trouble complaining to two police community support officers about a parking problem outside his house.

MP duped

However, the Knights continued to send the police and courts on a wild goose chase - and managed to dupe local Labour MP Geraint Davies into making inquiries into their case.

They also put on a convincing act to two GPs, who wrote to the courts saying they believed Mr Knight was in a “minimally unconscious state” - managing to postpone his trial on five separate occasions.

Mandy Tobias, Senior Crown Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service Cymru-Wales, said: “Alan Knight was originally charged with fraud and forgery. Over a prolonged period of time, both he and Helen Knight sought to obstruct the criminal justice process by dishonest means. Their actions led to significant delays in the original trial process and took up a considerable amount of public resource.

“These are serious offences and hopefully this prosecution will prevent others from seeking to adopt such a course.”

DC Harry, commended yesterday for finally bringing the Knights to justice said of the original crime: “Unfortunately Ivor Richards had no family and Knight took it upon himself to start caring for him. This is the most calculating, long-term deception of a vulnerable neighbour I have come across.”