A conman who stole the identities of elderly or dead people to commit a £1million mortgage fraud has been jailed for four years.

Martin Mitchell used the false identities to buy property in Chatham, Ashford, Folkestone and Rye, East Sussex.

When police went to his home in Rye, they found he had an expensive Mercedes CL car with the personal number plate G2 MGM.

A judge at Maidstone Crown Court told 54-year-old Mitchell: "You are a cunning and resourceful fraudster. Over a period of three years you carried out a series of sophisticated frauds on various financial institutions, which involved you obtaining money in excess of £1million.

"What is so contemptible and despicable about this is that in order to perpetrate these frauds you stole the identities of people - old people, sometimes either so infirm they couldn’t look after themselves or had already died."

Alan Kent, prosecuting, said Mitchell used the names and addresses of victims to carry out the sophisticated fraud. He also obtained or attempted to obtain cash on credit cards from stolen identities.

Mitchell admitted 13 charges of obtaining property by deception, three of obtaining services by deception and two of attempting to obtain money by deception.