'Evil' Telford fantasist who poisoned wife's food with laxatives is jailed

David Thomas Smith, 62, had slipped the laxatives into food he prepared for Elizabeth, leaving her so thin and weak she could hardly stand.

Today he faced sentencing at Ayr Sheriff Court, where he was jailed.

Sheriff John Montgomery, sentencing at Ayr Sheriff's Court, Scotland, said Smith was guilty of a prolonged, evil course of criminal conduct.

Smith, of Wharf Close in St Georges, admitted culpably and recklessly administering laxatives to Elizabeth between March 1, 2012, and July 20, 2015, knowing that they would damage her health so that she "repeatedly suffered illness or injury and required medical treatment", when he appeared court in Scotland in January.

Elizabeth said that, when they first met, Smith falsely claimed he owned a factory that made top secret components for the MoD which he was due to sell in a multi-million pound deal.

He also claimed to have been in the SAS.

Elizabeth, who was present in the court, was in tears of relief as the sentence was read out.

Smith, who claimed to have cancer after he was exposed, made Elizabeth so sick that her friends and family thought she had a terminal illness. His actions had left his beauty therapist wife so thin and weak that she could hardly stand.

Smith embarked on his reign of terror during their three-year relationship, which began in 2012.

Sheriff Montgomery said Smith had known the effect his actions would have.

He said: "It is clear to me you must have known the effect of the maladministration of laxatives over a prolonged period."

After Smith pleaded guilty at a hearing earlier this year it was revealed he was a Walter Mitty character, who had even lied about being one of the SAS heroes of the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980.

The court heard how he ruined the nail-technician's health and then stole money from her bank account.

After he admitted the charge Elizabeth revealed how she had been duped.

She said: "He seemed like a wonderful, wonderful man – we got on so well from day one. I just thought I had met the perfect man. But he poisoned me and stole thousands from me."

When the couple first met in 2012, Smith falsely claimed he owned a factory which made top secret components for the Ministry of Defence and that he was planning to sell it in a multi-million pound deal.

He also lied that his first wife was a professional ballerina who had been killed in a car crash.

The couple married on Arran in January 2015 but Elizabeth had become so gaunt and unwell, her family thought she was dying.