A fraudster – who borrowed the name of a Sherlock Holmes character to carry out his scams – has received a lesson in elementary deductions.

Con artist Aaron Cowan claimed he was the victim of a vicious gang who made him pose as an Inspector Lestrade to con cash from companies.

The 24 year old told a tale of guns, threats against his family and having petrol poured over him after owing £20,000 to loan sharks.

But Judge James O’Mahony told Cowan he had told a “pack of lies in order to try to pull the wool over his eyes”.

Now Cowan, formerly of Magdala Road, Broadstairs has been jailed for five years after admitting six charges of fraud – five of them while posing as a police officer.

The fraudster had used the Inspector Lestrade character from the Arthur Conan-Doyle novels to con businesses in Margate, Ramsgate and Canterbury into handing over cash and goods.

Prosecutor Patrick Dennis told Canterbury Crown Court how Cowan had used the ploy he was policeman investigating fake bank notes.

At IQ Mobiles in Margate he conned staff into handing over an iPhone – which he then sold to Carphone Warehouse in Broadstairs for £346.

Cowan then went to Coral’s Bookmakers in Queen Street, Ramsgate again claiming he was a detective investigating fraud.

He took away £4,840 in cash and the CCTV footage after convincing staff it was counterfeit money.

Cowan tried the same trick at Thomas Cook in Margate High Street on March 29, Palace Amusements in Margate and Game in St George’s Street, Canterbury but failed to get any more cash.

Cowan went into the witness box to claim he had borrowed £7,000 from four men he met in a Broadstairs pub after losing his job as a financial manager for a Canterbury motor company.

He said he later learned that some of the men were drug dealers.

The bogus cop then claimed he had been forced into carrying out the sophisticated frauds by the gang who threatened him and his family.

But the judge heard that when genuine police raided his home, they discovered fake police cards, equipment to test bank notes and more than £2,500 in cash.

And at that time, Cowan was sunbathing at a resort in Turkey.

The judge told him he was the most “unconvincing witness he had ever heard, with crocodile tears, a self-pitying confidence trickster”.

As he was being led away, a woman – believed to be Cowan’s mum - shouted at the judge: “I hope you are pleased with yourself!”

Inspector Lestrade, who appears in several of the Sherlock Holmes books, is described in A Study In Scarlet as "a little sallow rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow".