A clever fraudster who has milked the construction industry of about £1.5 million, was today jailed for a total of six years for his latest scam.

On licence from a four year prison sentence imposed in Maidstone for similar offences involving about half a million pounds, Paul Parmar, 37, (formerly Paul House), newly married to Sonal, 29, and completely unqualified, would get highly paid jobs as a quantity surveyor with reputable companies and funnel thousands of pounds through bent sub-contractors who did little or no work.

Just as he was about to be found out, he would leave the company destroying all the paper-work. Few would bother to pursue him as there was no paper trail to prove his activities.

The Parmars then lived the high life. Sonal was paid £56,000 a year by one of the sub-contractors for doing no work. They bought a £500,000 house in Bushey, expensive cars including a Mercedes with personalised number plates for him and a sports model for her.

Police found thousands of pounds worth of luxury goods with labels such as Gucci, Cartier, Luis Vuiton and Prada at a raid on their address. Many of the items, bought in Bond Street and on trips to Dubai, were still in their boxes with receipts for up to £50,000.

Parmar got caught because he and the sub-contractor he set up for the purpose, Fatah Bhalla, 50, of Advanced Distribution Ltd ADL "got greedy" while employed' by Pel Project Management Ltd of Oldbury, Birmingham.

"They took hundreds of thousands of pounds from PPM and while other companies wrote off their losses rather than risk taking legal action against sub-contractors, PPM lost so much they went to the police," said counsel.

The other companies who employed Parmar at a salary package of around £50,000 a year, were Frederick Sage Ltd of Alperton who lost £36,000 and Coffey Construction Ltd of Southgate who lost £51,000. PPM lost £802,000.

PPM were carrying out improvements on two Heathrow terminals.

Parmar admitted his part in the fraud before an eight week trial.

Balding with his remaining reddish-blond hair shaved, short and bespectacled, Parmar's appearance in the dock did not match up to the descriptions given by numerous witnesses in the trial, of a smooth, highly experienced operator.

Parmar's counsel, Anne Faul, said he accepted that his motive was nothing more than "financial greed" but that now he had lost everything, including his wife and baby son. She said the unprepossessing figure who had conned so many people in the industry, had now "learned his lesson" and was "turning over a new leaf".

Bhalla, a 50-year-old father of two teenagers, of Northumberland Avenue, Isleworth, and Aytac Asaf, of Sidcup, who's firm AJ Construction Ltd was used by Parmar to cheat Frederick Sage, both denied conspiring to defraud the companies and obtaining pecuniary advantages by the deception of providing Parmar with false references.

Bhalla was found guilty of two conspiracy charges and given three years. The jury was unable to agree verdicts on Asaf who faces a re-trial. Both were cleared of the deception charges. Sonal was cleared by the jury.