A man in China, whose multifaceted love life unravelled following a car crash last week, has been taken home early from hospital by his mother with a police escort to protect him from the 17 women he was reportedly dating.

The man, named only as Yuan, is suspected of fraudulent financial dealings with the women, reports said.

Yuan’s web of womanising began to unravel following a car accident, in a vehicle he reportedly borrowed from one of the girlfriends, which put him in hospital on 24 March.

While he was confined to a hospital bed, a stream of girlfriends started turning up at the hospital, often at the same time. 17 are reported to have visited overall.

The women are believed to be between the ages of 20 and 40 and only learned of their deception when they arrived at his bedside, The China Daily reports.

The hospital told local newspaper Xiaoxiang Chen Bao that Yuan fled the hospital in a hurry with the police support before he had fully recovered from his injuries suffered in the crash.

Xiao Li, a girlfriend of Yuan’s for 18 months, told the paper: “I was really worried when I heard he was in hospital. But when I started to see more and more beautiful girls turn up, I couldn’t cry anymore.”

According to China Daily, a large part of Yuan’s motives were monetary. Following a divorce last year he allegedly swindled his wife out of 250,000 yuan (£27,000) and apparently claimed hundreds of thousands of yuan from his girlfriends.

Chinese news website Thepaper.cn puts this figure as high as 500,000 yuan (£54,000).

He faces criminal charges of alleged fraud.

The girlfriends said that there were other women in relationships with Yuan on top of the original 17.

Mr Yuan’s deception is not purely confined to the romantic field.