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A father who posed as a landlord pretended his young son had cancer to con eight would-be tenants out of more than £10,000

Serial conman Neil Jackson, 35, posed as a landlord to rent rooms on Gumtree and took big deposits from prospective tenants.

But once they had handed over the cash he told them they couldn’t move in because his son had cancer.

Jackson told one potential tenant his son was seriously ill in hospital and even told another that his son had died.

At Cardiff Crown Court on Thursday he admitted eight counts of fraud.

His case was listed before Judge Eleri Rees for a plea and trial preparation hearing on Thursday.

The charges involve eight victims and relate to the period between October 2016 and March 2017.

Prosecutor Tony Trigg said the defendant repeatedly took deposit payments from the prospective tenants for his property in Lothian Crescent in Penylan, Cardiff, but never let them move in.

He conned the victims out of £10,190, the court heard.

(Image: Wales News Service)

Jackson, from Mathias Close in Penylan , will be sentenced on May 18.

The defendant, dressed in a blue hooded top, spoke only to confirm his name and enter his pleas during the hearing.

After the hearing Crown Proscution Service senior crown prosecutor Kelly Huggins said: “Jackson persuaded various people to pay him money over a number of months.

“He continued his pretence that he was a registered landlord and that the agreements would be honoured.

“Instead he lied about his son’s health in order to delay them and avoid making repayments.

“His victims were relying on him to put a roof over their heads but the reality was he deliberately took their money and prevented them moving on with their lives.”

It was the second time brazen Jackson used the tactic to commit fraud – having been jailed in 2012 for conning more than £60,000 from colleagues at Tesco.

(Image: Wales News Service)

Jackson told workers both he and his young son were dying – only to blow the money on holidays in Las Vegas and Hawaii.

He was jailed for six years in 2012 after admitting four counts of fraud and a count of theft.

In his previous cancer con Tesco store manager Jackson tricked kind-hearted workmates for three years by claiming he had cancer and his son, two, had cerebral palsy.

Supermarket workers handed him cheques and wads of cash to pay for private treatment.

(Image: Wales News Service)

But a court heard there was nothing wrong with Jackson’s health – and that his son was a healthy child with no sign of a brain disorder.

Gambling addict Jackson was in debt but also used the money to pay for trips to America.

While in Las Vegas he sent texts to his victims claiming he was at his son's bedside undergoing treatment in a Newcastle-on-Tyne hospital.

The prosecutor in that case, Peter Davies, said: “He preyed on good-hearted people for a considerable time – deliberately targeting them.

“He told one colleague he had been diagnosed with abdominal cancer and needed an urgent operation.

(Image: Wales News Service)

“He told another he had a cardiac condition and that his son had been born with cerebral palsy and he needed money for private treatment.

“He was caught up in a web of deceit and vicious lies.”

Jailing him at the time Judge David Morris told him: “By blatant deception and utter lies you elicited sympathy for your supposed medical condition.

“Your deceit was profound and despicable and it was a repeated campaign against people who you knew to be vulnerable because of their generosity of spirit.”