A convicted fraudster who went on the run after conning tenants out of £10,000 worth of deposits for flats he had no right to let is finally in jail.

James Bennett, 32, of no fixed abode, was found guilty of 17 counts of fraud in his absence in December last year and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.

A warrant was issued for his arrest and the police finally caught up with him last week on Friday, January 26.

He appeared at London Inner Crown Court later that afternoon and was sentenced to a further month’s imprisonment to run consecutively for failing to appear in court.

Between late 2015 and December 2016, Bennett made numerous listings on the Spareroom.com website advertising rooms for rent at four separate London properties in Brixton, Walworth, Elephant & Castle and Tooting.

In each case, he didn’t have permission to rent out the rooms and was in the process of being evicted. In all 17 cases, he took holding deposits of up to £725.

Many victims only found out they had been defrauded when they turned up on the day agreed to move in.

Bennett (pictured) made no attempt to hide his identity and gave tenancy agreements to each victim. He also willingly provided copies of his passport and other documents to prove his identity in order to dupe his victims who had all made reasonable attempts to ensure he was genuine.

Bennett earlier pleaded not guilty at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court to all 17 charges.

Inner London Crown Court heard that Bennett has a long history of offending, including previous convictions for fraud offences and perverting the course of justice.

In a statement, SpareRoom.com, the site on which Bennett advertised, told EYE: “We take the safety and security of our users very seriously, which is why every ad on SpareRoom is checked by our dedicated moderation team.

“Thankfully it’s incredibly rare for our users to encounter any problems and, to date, over 7m people have had a safe and positive experience using SpareRoom to find a flat share.

“In this instance we were able to cooperate with police to make sure the person in question was identified and convicted.”