A WORLD record-holding yachtsman who conned three women out of £68,000 just months after being released from prison has been jailed for eight years.

Serial fraudster Peter Berry, 51, met two victims on a dating website and a kayaking club weekend, while another was a next door neighbour.

He was released from jail on licence in September 2012, after being handed a five-year term for similar fraud offences in 2010.

Berry, who used many aliases including John Berry, John Smith, James Smith and John Keady, went to live in East Preston, West Sussex.

He met the first victim, a 51-year-old woman from Swindon, in October 2012.

Joanne Clifford met Berry on Plenty of Fish and said he called himself “James Smith” also known as “Jay”.

They arranged to meet at a pub, where she found Berry didn’t look like the photos he had posted online.

Berry told her he had a doctorate in engineering and was building a prototype for wind turbines.

Later that month he telephoned Ms Clifford sounding stressed and said he was struggling to raise the last £50,000 of a £200,000 business investment.

He initially refused money from her but then persuade her it would be a smart investment.

Bank statements show money was transferred to Berry’s Barclays account, then in the name of John Keady, a name he had changed to by deed poll.

The pair spent a night together at a pub in Chiselhurst, which Ms Clifford paid for understanding Berry would ‘pay next time’.

On November 12 Berry told Ms Clifford and said he was struggling financially and she added another £5,000 to her investment.

She later transferred £10,000 when Berry said he was going to have to lay off a member of staff.

The romance ended but Ms Clifford continued to stay in contact with Berry, seeking reassurance her investment would pay off, or that she would get her money back.

Ms Clifford said in November 2013 she received a letter from Sussex Police regarding the transfer of large sums of money into the defendant’s account.

She sent text messages and was eventually called by Berry who said he had simply ‘done something a bit naughty’ with transferring money between accounts.

She said she has not spoken to Berry since the last phone conversation in November 2013.

In the following months Berry met a 36-year-old woman from Southampton, then a 66-year-old from East Preston, West Sussex.

Berry manipulated and charmed the women into lending him thousands of pounds for non-existence business deals, without any security.

They handed over sums of £35,000, £18,000 and £15,000, which have never been recovered.

Berry, of Brockenhurst, Hampshire, was eventually arrested in October 2015.

He was convicted and jailed for eight years at Inner London Crown Court last Thursday for three counts of fraud by false representation.

After suspicions were raised in January 2014, a prison licence notice was issued for Berry’s recall to jail.

Police went to his flat where they found post, mouldy food and clothes in the washing machine, but Berry had fled.

A VW car transporter found in the car park at the flats, registered in his name, was seized as it had belonged to a firm Berry had a credit agreement with, which has since been returned.

Berry was placed on an all ports alert and an appeal was made on BBC Crimewatch Roadshow.

Police received a tip-off in October 2015 Berry was living in Lyndhurst in the New Forest.

They went to the address and arrested a man who gave the name Jonathon Jasper John.

He claimed they had the wrong man, then said he had changed his name by deed poll.

But at the police station he admitted he was Peter Berry and a fingerprint check confirmed he was the man they were looking for.

While on the run he had married another woman he had met on a dating website.

His wife had no knowledge of his history and not made any criminal allegations against Berry.

Berry became a well-known figure in the sailing community in the late 1990s.

He once sailed with the late American billionaire and adventurer Steve Fossett, the first man to fly non-stop round the earth in a hot air balloon who died in a plane crash in 2007.

PC Astra Barnes of Sussex Police said: “Berry has once again shown that he is a very plausible and convincing thief.

“He has a perverse skill in identifying women who have independent means and savings, but who can still be vulnerable to his specious charm.”