Conman poses as rock star at town carnival

RESIDENTS of a seaside town were tricked by a conman who pretended he was a member of rock band Status Quo, a council member said yesterday.

When the trickster duped members of Dover Town Council in Kent into believing he was front man Francis Rossi, they were so impressed they invited him to be guest of honour at the town’s annual carnival parade.

Councillor Chris Precious said the man, whose true identity is unknown, spent the day enjoying the hospitality of the town’s mayor before his secret was found out.

Precious said he did not believe the man to be the chart-topping musician but he also did not want to spoil the day’s festivities.

He said: “I wasintroduced to him and I thought to myself: ‘If that’s Francis Rossi, he’s turned ginger, shrunk a bit and grown more hair’.”

“He spent the day with us and the council were keen to have him on board as we were preparing for this year’s Festival of Dover and we thought he might be able to help us promote it.

“I went to the town clerk a couple of days later and said, ‘That’s not the man he says he is’.

“I believe he was confronted but I don’t know what happened to him after that.”

Precious said that he believed the conman may have been given “a couple of glasses of wine” but had not gained anything else from the deception as far as he was aware.

He added: “I think a couple of other people had their doubts about him but they were prepared to accept it as they didn’t know what Francis Rossi looked like.”

Precious said it was not the first time that the people of Dover had been conned by somebody pretending to be a celebrity.

A year earlier, a man visited several pubs in the area claiming to be Pete Townshend, front man of The Who.