A TEENAGE fraudster tricked a Cirencester man into handing over his bank cards and revealing his PIN so he could steal money from his account.

Salam Uddin, 18, travelled to the town from London with two other men to carry out the fraud on January 4.

One of the fraudsters called a landline in Cirencester from a mobile phone with an untraceable SIM card and told the man who answered that he was Detective Constable Lescot from Holburn police station in London and that his bank cards had been used in a fraud.

The victim was told to phone his bank but the conmen kept the line open and when the man made the call they posed as bank staff. They collected his PIN and arranged for a courier to collect his cards.

Cash was taken from a Tesco cash point in Cirencester before the victim realised something was wrong.

He contacted Gloucestershire police and the two other men were arrested that night near another cash point in the town, while Uddin was arrested sitting nearby in a car.

Uddin, of Hemingway Close in Gospel Oak, London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud.

He was sentenced to six months in a juvenile detention centre but, because he had been in custody since July 11, he was set free immediately after the hearing at St Albans Crown Court on Friday.