Three fraudsters who carried out a con posing as police officers in Kent have avoided prison.

The trio – including a former semi-professional footballer – scammed £2,000 from trusting victims in their 80s – but also targeted 228 others.

But they received suspended jail terms after admitting being part of a fraud conspiracy in which the husband of a woman with dementia was scammed.

Alamin Hoque, 23, Isaac Nkosi, 27, and Rhai Tanbir, also 27, all from London, carried out the frauds in 2019. Charges against a fourth man were dropped.

Prosecutor Daniel O'Donoghue told Maidstone Crown Court: "This was a police courier fraud. Hoque would telephone intended victims, pretending to be a police officer or pretending to be calling from the victim's bank.

"He would say the bank cards had been cloned and a courier would collect the card and during the call he would try to elicit the pin number."

He said that people were targeted in Kent and Hertfordshire in October 2019 when Hoque posed as "PC Watson" to steal £500 from an 89-year-old woman and later defrauded £1,500 from an 82-year-old man in Tunbridge Wells.

The cards were used to withdraw cash and to buy fuel.

Mr O'Donogue said that 200 calls were made to potential victims in Tunbridge Wells and 12 to people living in Sevenoaks.

Dominic Hockley for Hoque, who now has a serious medical condition, said he had now changed and had asked his victims to forgive him.

Hoque was given an eight-month jail sentence suspended for 15 months. Nkosi, a former semi-pro footballer, received a 26-week sentence suspended for a year and Tanbir, a file handler, was handed a 27-week jail sentence, also suspended for a year.

All three were also ordered to carry out 60 hours of unpaid work and pay £600 in court costs.

The judge Recorder Andrew Walker QC told them they had preyed on their victims' wish to help police.

"That risks damaging the public's trust in the police and threatens genuine police investigations," he added.