A CONMAN who tricked dozens of hospitals up and down the country into offering him medical treatment for fake ailments has been jailed for four years.

Derek Martin was branded a persistent liar by a judge and “diabolical” for wasting precious NHS resources others so desperately need.

Teesside Crown Court heard how the 69-year-old also left one un-named doctor's surgery with a £85,000 budget deficit after stealing one of its patients' identities to secure medical treatment.

Martin, said to have 25 different aliases, admitted one count of fraud by false representation between May 2 and May 9 this year when he turned up at Middlesbrough's James Cook University Hospital complaining he had suffered a stroke.

Prosecutor Sue Jacobs said the pensioner underwent a number of different procedures, but his behaviour began causing concern when he became aggressive.

There were inconsistencies in his account and he also refused to go for an MRI scan, saying he was claustrophobic.

The police were called and arrested Martin, who has 110 fraud offences on his criminal record dating back to 1969.

The defendant asked for four other similar matters to be taken into account between 2010 and 2013 – examples of what was said to be a string of offending involving hospitals and GP surgeries.

Mrs Jacobs said Martin, of no fixed abode, got “accommodation, board and lodge” on some occasions – at the taxpayers expense.

Peter Wishlade, mitigating, said Martin had visited at least 73 hospitals where he had received treatment.

He said: “The list of hospitals is quite remarkable and ranges from the very south of the country to the north of Scotland.”

The court was told that Martin refused to co-operate with a probation officer which Judge Les Spittle said made him unsuitable for a community-based order.

He told Martin: “You have a mental condition...you cannot do anything but tell lies all the time whether it is to doctors trying to help you or your own legal representatives.”

The judge said by locking him up for four years it would give some respite to the medical community and keep him out of hospitals and doctors surgeries.

He said: “Our medical resources are vital and they should not be wasted in the way you are wasting them.

“It is diabolical. Those resources could have gone to others who desperately need them and have probably been bumped back down the list.”