A conman who tricked people into believing he was a doctor to the Queen has been jailed for four years after swindling two families out of almost £160,000.

Josef Valadakis, also known as Josef Hoffman, 48, of Cornwall Road, Tottenham, charged people suffering from anxiety up to £100 an hour for treatment including ‘whale sperm’ massages and bizarre creams.

The Australian-born fraudster purported to have a PhD in biophysics from the 'University of Cambridgeshire' and also stated he was medically qualified.

He said he had treated Lord Sugar, Alexander McQueen, Theresa May, Russell Brand, Robbie Williams and Sophia Loren.

But he told his victims from Hertfordshire he was allowed to treat some "commoners" with anxiety and nervous disorders by removing toxins from their bodies.

His treatments included "snail wraps" - applying a cream which he said was from the excrement of snails fed on lemon grass.

Another was giving massages with a substance he said was whale sperm.

With a website he'd set up to promote his 'treatments' and a gift for spinning persuasive yarns, he was able to swindle £156,000 from the two families who thought they were being treated by a real doctor.

To keep his con going with one victim, he even told the man he had cancer, was at risk of diabetes and could go blind by the age of 51.

Valadakis also claimed to have invented products to assist patients undergoing cancer treatment, that he had a secret government-based lab and he treated some of MI5’s spies.

In some cases he also asked for intimate information about couples he was treating and asked some clients to submit a diary of their intimate thoughts.

He was caught after a couple who were both clients became suspicious and provided a concoction of various members of the family’s urine as a sample. This was never identified.

At St Albans crown court on Friday Judge Marie Catterson told Valadakis he had "spun a web of complete self-serving deceit - a babble."

"You are a dishonest charlatan. You have no business telling any human being they did or they didn't have cancer. You are a devious and manipulative man."

The fraudster even tried to con the jury during his trial. Asked by prosecutor Ann Evans about his dealings with the Queen, he claimed he couldn't discuss it even in court because had signed the Official Secrets Act.

All his victims said they would never have allowed him anywhere near them if they had known he wasn't a real doctor.

Valadakis was also sentenced for causing Actual Bodily Harm on a client who was left with injuries following a massage.

Detective Constable Delia Pilkington from the Money Laundering Investigation Team at the Eastern Region Specialist Operations Unit (ERSOU), said: "Josef Valadakis or Hoffman, as he was also known, is a fantasist.

"He created a fake identity, alter ego and fake products and preyed on vulnerable members of society who had genuine concerns about their health.

"At no point did he take their feelings into account nor did it prey on his conscience that he was conning them out of vast sums of money, as well as the physical harm he caused to some of his clients.

"We are pleased with the sentence passed to day - it highlights the severity of his crimes and I hope it can bring some closure to the victims involved in this case."