A FRAUDSTER who conned his terminally-ill friend out of almost half a million pounds has been jailed for five years.

Keith Cameron, 54, was earlier convicted of obtaining £476,874 by fraud from Jonathan Speirs in a crime which led a sheriff to say he had never seen conduct "more dishonourable, or a meaner and more heartless crime of dishonesty".

Sentencing Cameron at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday, Sheriff Michael O'Grady QC said: "I will not trouble you, or indeed myself, by repeating what I had occasion to say on your conviction."

The jury of eight men and seven women took just half an hour last month to unanimously find Cameron, of Russell Place, Edinburgh, guilty of obtaining £476,874 by fraud between October 1, 2009, and September 14, 2012.

They also returned a unanimous guilty verdict on a charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act of being in possession of and using criminal property - the money he had obtained by the fraud.

Sheriff O'Grady imposed the five-year sentence on the fraud charge and three years on the Proceeds of Crime charge, to run concurrently.

Mr Speirs, a world-famous lighting design architect whose work included the Millennium Dome and Dubai's Burrj Lhalifa, the world's tallest building, died of stomach cancer in 2012 aged 54.

The jury heard that Mr Speirs had been anxious to ensure the financial future of his wife, Elizabeth, and their two daughters.

Cameron, who had been a friend of Mr Speirs for years, persuaded him to invest in Chase Telecom Ltd, a company he said he had set up to obtain a lucrative contract to supply telecom services to companies.

Cameron told his friend that other investors had invested millions of pounds into the company and that he could expect to receive £2 million within two years. Cameron sent out false documents to show the company was trading well and producing dividends.

During the trial, Fiscal Depute Gerard Drugan described Cameron as "a Walter Mitty character" who had spent "astronomical amounts of money". His home in the upmarket Trinity area of the city was valued at over £1 million with a monthly mortgage of £4,000, his children went to a fee-paying school and holidays were spent in luxury villas in Portugal.

Mrs Speirs, 58, who has recently received radiation treatment for breast cancer, said after the verdict that she and her two daughters were now struggling for money and she was being forced to sell the family home.

Detective Inspector Arron Clinkscales said: "Keith Cameron used his expertise and relationship to make his victim believe that this was a legitimate investment. He also indicated that others had invested significant sums and forged investment documents.

"He was able to continue the pretence of a legitimate investment for nearly two years, with repeated promises of returns, until his victim died, leaving a grieving widow to discover the fraud."

Cameron's defence advocate, Mark Moir, said that his client had told a social worker that he deeply regretted what had happened to the Speirs family.

The background report treats that with some scepticism, he said. He added: "While he (Cameron) maintains he did nothing wrong, he feels sorry about what happened to the Speirs family, who have lost a substantial sum of money."