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A woman has spoken out after her boyfriend, who had been a serial conman, faked a kidney transplant to fraud her out of more than 3,000.

Paul Gillet,28, deceived Rebecca Rouse, 35 after she met him through the dating app Tinder in February 2017. Gillett claimed he needed money to cover medical bills for a kidney transplant and Ms Rouse offered to lend him a sum.

Gillett pretended to call Rebecca from the hospital on several occasions and even showed her a fake surgical dressing on his side, she claims.

Ms Rouse, from Lincolnshire, grew concerned when he stopped replying and vanished with her money – she contacted West Mercia police who were aware of Gillett selling fake Ed Sheeran tickets.

Gillett, of Carmarthen, Wales, was eventually found and jailed for three years after he admitted three counts of fraud and 21 similar matters at Worcester Crown Court March 2019.

Ms Rouse, a care home worker, said: “I still can’t believe the lengths he went to for money. It’s shaken my trust in men and I’m still in a bad way because of him.”

Ms Rouse first met Gillett after swiping right for him on Tinder, where he claimed to be a funeral director and the two started messaging each other daily.

She said: “At first he seemed like a nice guy. He wasn't like all the other people on Tinder and he appeared genuinely interested in me.

“All his messages were so flattering – whenever I got one it would put a huge smile on my face. He did ask to meet me quite early on, so I was a bit wary of that.

“Now I realise why he was being so keen.”

After messaging for a week on Tinder, Ms Rouse exchanged numbers with Gillett and arranged to meet him after her shift finished at the Co-op in Lincolnshire, where she was working at the time.

The pair started dating and she introduced Gillett to her mother Marianne, 65, with whom she lived with at home in Saxilby, Lincolnshire.

Ms Rouse said: “He came around the night we met and my mum liked him. We started seeing each other most days and Paul was so generous.

“He’d take mum and me out for meals and insist on paying. He even mentioned taking me to see Ed Sheeran for my birthday so everything was going well between us.

"Paul was always talking about his family and showing us photos, he kept saying he'd arrange for us to meet. He was so romantic and everything seemed perfect."

Rebecca Rouse has spoken out of her experience being defrauded of more than £3,000 (SWNS). Gillett moved in with Rebecca and her mum in March 2017 after he told her his flat had become inhabitable after a bad storm destroyed his chimney.

Ms Rouse, who suffers from benign intracranial hypertension, a build-up of fluid on the brain, said she began to draw closer to Gillett after he opened up to her about his supposed health problems.

“Paul started telling me more about himself and mentioned a problem with his kidney,” she said.

“He told me he had an operation as a kid and he still had issues with it.

“I’d been in and out of hospital over the years with my condition so it was nice to meet someone who knew what it was like.”

One evening a few weeks later, Ms Rouse received a call from Gillett – he told her he’d gone into the hospital with kidney pains.

She said: “I tried to call him but he told me the signal was bad on the ward so he couldn’t speak.