MBE conman's sister helped police

The sister of the MBE fraudster Michael Eke last night spoke for the first time of how she secretly helped the police investigate her brother.

Beryl Hudson, and her husband John, who have publicly disowned Eke, told how they met with detectives and passed on paperwork that helped build the case against him.

But the couple, from Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire, said they were left devastated when the conman was given just 18 months for his crimes after causing the family so much heartache.

Mrs Hudson, said: "He should have got a lot longer; we had been wanting for justice to be done and we feel it wasn't. He should have got at least three years."

The couple said they had also shared their concerns with police about Eke's involvement in the finances of his mother Barbara - even just before she died after falling ill with an inoperable brain tumour.

As reported in the EDP, the 38-year-old police employee from March, Cambridgeshire, admitted 14 charges involving fraud, dishonesty and theft last month.

The couple said they started to question Eke's claims of innocence after he was suspended from his job with Cambridgeshire police and the March Air Training Corps.

But it was when he brought round some bags he claimed were Christmas presents for his family, containing a laptop computer and cameras, that the family contacted the police.

It later turned out these were items he had stolen from the force through his civilian job in the Cambridgeshire police post room.

Eke managed to con the police, the government and even the Queen during his deceit.

He forged nomination papers to acquire his honour and obtained £66,000 through fraud.

The police employee and prominent member of the community in March also pocketed thousands of pounds in lottery grants and stole computers, cameras and other electrical goods from Cambridgeshire police.

Ironically, at his trial, the judge said that his work for charity might have won him an MBE without forging the paperwork.

Mrs Hudson, 47, said: "I would say you just had to see it to believe it - all the things he would do. We just didn't believe anything he said anymore, but we didn't let on, and then we got in touch with the police."

Mr Hudson, 47, said: "The full story of what he did has never come out, and it never will.

"The only charity he was concerned in was the Michael Eke fund."

Mrs Hudson added: "He believes his own lies. I think his whole adult life has been based on lies."

The couple said Eke loved the attention he got from his so called charity work and was addicted to the publicity.

They said Eke would probably struggle in prison, and that he

could put the back up of other prisoners.

The couple said they also

wanted to thank publicly Det Con Mark Cross and Det Con Greg Page

for their work in taking the case to court. They said the detectives "worked beyond the call of duty" to pull together the case against Eke.