I went on Facebook to find out the truth about my new boyfriend – what I learned shocked me to the core

A prolific fraudster who conned women out of thousands of pounds through false promises of love and a luxurious lifestyle is currently serving his final prison sentence.

Over the past twenty years, Raymond McDonald, 51, from Country Durham, has been in and out of prison a number of times.

This was the first time when he was convicted of fraud in 2003 before he started running the romance scam.

After leaving prison in December last year, he soon started seeing multiple women at the same time, whom he met on dating sites.

He cheated them of money and even tried to marry one of the victims.

However, it wasn’t long before he ended up back in prison in August after more scams, leaving his victims to pick up the pieces.

These women have now decided to speak out and have described to the BBC the trauma they have felt, similar to that of sexual assault and domestic violence.

One of the victims who spoke to the broadcaster said they first met McDonald through a dating site last December.

He told her he was working in a covert military role over Christmas, training foreign soldiers, but wanted to keep in touch with her over the holidays.

The woman said, “(He) just made you feel, I don’t know, wanted. Special. I haven’t been in a relationship for so long. I think in retrospect this is what I wanted to hear.”

However, it later emerged that McDonald not only talked to Paula, but also built relationships with several women, arranging to meet and telling them that he was newly divorced and starting a new job.

One claimed McDonald told her he had to be on probation duty in the evening – when in fact he was reporting for probation.

All the women who came forward initially described him as warm, sincere and even vulnerable.

In the midst of it all, however, he took money from them to pay for things that would never materialize – such as luxury items or home deposits – while his victims thought he had assets abroad as well as nice cars.

While maintaining the relationship, McDonald traveled to the Middle East to marry his partner, whom he had only been dating for weeks.

Police believe McDonald paid for the trip with money swindled from other victims, making arrangements and showing his partner fake evidence that their marriage was legal under local law.

She never had any reason to think it was all a sham, but when they returned from their ‘honeymoon’ in March – just four months after he left prison.

However, McDonald did not fool everyone, as some of them began to become suspicious of who he was, and Paula was concerned enough to use Clare’s Law, which can be used by people to request information about the previous offense from a partner.

Another victim also started interrogating his victims after he pressured her to pay him more money to bargain for luxury gods that never appeared, and he accepted a friend’s proposal to post about him in a Facebook group called ‘Are We Dating The Same Guy?’ – and the reactions she received were shocking.

One of the users showed the victim a newspaper article describing McDonald as ‘cowardly’ which was seen by his victim.

As her new husband sat in another room, she read the comments and said, “My world fell apart.”

She made an excuse to leave and immediately called the police, and he was arrested hours later.

His own mother has described him as a ‘big liar’ and a ‘complete sham’, revealing he told women he had duped her death and even pretended to go to her funeral on Valentine’s Day.

She also claimed that McDonald once even rounded up his relatives, to whom he also had a habit of lying – claiming that he was dying.

“I had two nervous breakdowns because of him,” she added.

So who is the real Raymond McDonald?

He was dishonorably charged by the military in 2000 and briefly worked at a supermarket and a chicken-packing factory, but soon began committing fraud.

He received his first prison sentence in 2003, followed by a suspended sentence four years later, on top of a further four prison sentences.

He was released during the term he was given in 2019, immediately started defrauding another woman and was recalled to prison.

In the latest case, within two weeks of his release last December, he was back on dating sites that picked targets and destroyed women once they found the truth.

One said: ‘My whole world fell apart.’

Another said detectives once came to her front door and explained what had happened, saying she “couldn’t get out of bed.”

Detective Saad Sheban, the latest to put the fraudster behind bars, described him as a “serial con man” who “preys on women” in search of a “life partner.”

“People normally think ‘dangerous’ is someone who can hurt you physically, make you bleed, but Raymond hurts people emotionally.”

Det Con Saad Sheban added that there could be ‘hundreds’ more victims living with the consequences of McDonad’s lies.

Dr. Elisabeth Carter, who advises police on perpetrators’ grooming methods, said victims often feel ashamed.

She said: ‘They haven’t just lost their money. This person was right in front of them and was in their face.”

She added that the impact on victims of romance fraud is “similar to the psychological impact of rape and other forms of sexual abuse.”

Following the latest arrest in March, McDonald initially denied any wrongdoing but later pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud by false representation. In August he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison at New Castle Crown Court.

The judge noted that the emotional impact on the women far outweighed the financial loss suffered.