The Football Fraudster review: Inside the mind of a serial conman… and the victims he cruelly duped, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

The Footballer Fraudster (ITV1) 

Rating:

True crime is spreading. The solely real-life investigations on display screen used to focus solely on homicide — normally serial killings, notably these involving girls or youngsters.

But as the public fascination with the psychology of crime continues to develop, current days have seen two tv probes into bank card fraud: final week, the BBC‘s Confessions Of A Teenage Fraudster, and now, The Footballer Fraudster. 

No one died, although victims misplaced tens of hundreds of kilos.

Podcasts have led this shift. Excellent audio exhibits investigating very differing kinds of fraud embody The Missing Cryptoqueen, by a Radio 5 Live crew, and Stolen Hearts, a jaw-dropping account of a bank-robbery-and-romance rip-off, narrated by Kerry Godliman — properly price a pay attention.

And if podcasts are the vanguard of reporting crime, the Daily Mail is main the means with Britain’s high two in the Spotify charts. 

Both present in-depth evaluation of present trials: one of killer nurse Lucy Letby, the different of a man accused of plotting to kidnap, rape and homicide Holly Willoughby.

We can anticipate to see TV following swimsuit, with detailed protection of legal trials — at present there are restrictions on what could be proven although, so reconstructions of authorized proceedings utilizing actors may turn out to be extra widespread.

Nothing was glimpsed of the arrest or prosecution of 35-year-old Medi Abalimba, the so-called Footballer Fraudster, serving his third jail sentence in ten years.

But at the finish of this documentary, we did hear his voice from jail, making vaguely threatening hints to the producers that he could be ready to offer an interview, at a value — £1 million.

Born in Congo, Abalimba got here to Britain aged 5 and proved a promising younger footballer, incomes a place in Southend’s under-16 programme — although he lied about his age and was 19 at the time.

Trials for main golf equipment adopted with a stint at Derby County, on a rumoured £4,000 a week. 

He found each males and girls cherished being round him, entranced by the glamour of his job and his pure charisma. 

When his profession was minimize quick by harm, he saved the glamour going — pretending to be a Chelsea FC star, an American footballer, a sports activities fixer and a U.S. particular forces soldier.

The artwork of the con, he labored out, lies in giving victims what they need most . . . whether or not that is the good boyfriend, the cool finest mate or the good consumer.

He tricked a succession of males into chauffeuring him and even paying his lodge payments, by convincing them he may give them entry to the world of wealth and fame. 

And he duped at the least two well-known girls — Love Island’s Georgia Steel, and Claire Merry, ex-wife of Arsenal’s Thierry Henry — into relationships, emptying their financial institution accounts as he showered them with presents.

Strip away the paparazzi trappings and these crimes are tawdry. 

But the mindset of each sufferer and perpetrator is fascinating, and forensic psychologist Donna Youngs dissected it with precision.  

She should do a podcast.

Love Island’s Georgia Steel was one of Abalimba’s victims, as proven in fascinating new documentary The Football Fraudster