A romance fraudster who conned men into spending tens of thousands of pounds and funding her expensive lifestyle has been jailed for more than seven years. Over four years, model Gemma Kingsley, 50, wove a web of lies with several victims.

She tricked men into relationships with her and informed them she was soon to inherit millions from her late grandfather, leveraging that to compel them to spend huge sums of money on her behalf, including on a planned wedding. On other occasions, she stole or used false bank card details to pay thousands of pounds for hotel stays, including at a five-star Alpine resort in France, Swindon Crown Court heard.

At a previous hearing, Kingsley, of Beadnell, Northumberland, pleaded guilty to six counts of theft, four counts of fraud by false representation, two counts of using a false instrument with intent that it will be accepted as genuine, and one count of being in possession of an article for use in fraud.

Jailing Kingsley, Judge Jason Taylor KC told her: "Your duplicity and brass neck is staggering.

"You are a common thief who traded on her charm, charisma and good looks to ensnare victims without any regard to the train of destruction being left behind by your greed."

The judge went on: "Blinded by your greed, you persistently and manipulatively pulled whatever lever you thought necessary to extract as much as you could to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

"Your principal lever was emotional, convincing men that their sincere feelings for you were reciprocated.

"Two were recently divorced and, to some degree, more vulnerable and exposed because of that.

"Telling them and others that you were due to inherit a fortune, worth as much as £80 million at one point.

"You spun an intricate web of lies, including false documents, bank appointments and multimillion-pound house viewings, to add credibility to your claims.

"The image you portrayed was so fantastical that it's not hard to envisage how your victims were taken in by it because, bluntly, most people are not that divorced from reality.

"Your lack of remorse was only matched by your guile in squeezing every last penny from one victim before moving on to the next.

"You were a financial predator always on the prowl for easy prey."