When Ron, aged 60, was reported to the police for being unfaithful by Rita, his young Seychelles wife, they both ended up in the police station cells. His passport was out of date and her visa had expired. The President Hotel promptly sued them for an unpaid bill.

They had been in prison for a month before I heard about them - I had just been appointed Consul. Slowly the full story came out.

He told me that he was on the verge of raising a loan of US$ 2 million but he had to go to San Francisco to arrange it and the venture capital company wanted an advance of US$40,000. He was, so he said, negotiating to buy the President Hotel which was why he had been staying there free of charge. They only asked him to pay for drinks, which was the B3,000 outstanding. I met the manager of the hotel and persuaded him to write off Ron's debt and drop the charge against him. This they kindly agreed to do.

Ron had many great schemes in hand. There was a beautiful property in the Seychelles owned by a relative of his wife. It lay on one of the most spectacular beaches in the world. The Hilton and two other international hotel groups were vying to join with him to develop it as a world-class resort. Every time I went to see him he told me of other projects that were on the verge of being reali s ed.

It was all a misunderstanding he protested. He had another passport, which was held by a guesthouse in Bangkok as he owed them a small sum of money. I asked my sister-in-law to try and retrieve the passport. This she did after settling the bill of B8,000 - I was very naive in those days for, of course, I never was repaid. She took the passport to the Embassy.

They rang me. Ron's passport was two years out of date and contained no entry visa for Thailand and, yes, they knew all about Ron. He had a long record as a confidence trickster and cheat with debts in Thailand and throughout the Middle East.

A month later he went to court and his fine, after deducting the B70 per day credited to him while he was in prison, amounted to B590, which I paid. The police released him and he was promptly seized by immigration officials who escorted him and his poor wife to the awful immigration jail in Bangkok.

I heard some months later that some kind person had paid for their airfare to Singapore where, I have no doubt they continued their chosen career.