A former church minister and policeman was jailed for three years today after being convicted of bigamy and forgery.

Roderick Sangster, 58, was found guilty of entering into a bigamous marriage by a jury at Warwick Crown Court in November, the Press Association reported.

The court had heard that Sangster wed Janet Wallace while still married to Jill Sangster, leaving them both thousands of pounds in debt.

"You left your first wife, debts had risen to impossible levels," said judge Marten Coates as he sentenced him.

"You left your second wife bankrupt and your third partner almost destitute. Your motives, I am sure, were dishonest from the start."

The trial was told that Sangster, who was once an officer in London's Metropolitan Police and a minister of the Church of Scotland, targeted financially secure, vulnerable women.

Once he had taken their money and left them in debt, he would move on to his next victim.

"Bigamy cases are rare. I think they are rare because the public has a greater regard for the institution and obligations of marriage than you do," Coates said.

Sangster married his second wife, Jill, in Florida in August 1996 after legally divorcing his first wife of 25 years, Frances Tait.

Mrs Sangster, who lives in Perth, Scotland, was forced to declare herself bankrupt after discovering that he had run up a debt of 30,000 pounds.

Sangster then got a job at a hotel in Evesham, Worcestershire, and started internet dating where he met Wallace, a cancer patient. They married in Leamington Spa in July 2004 before moving to Scotland.

Wallace, who lives in Flisk, near Newburgh in Fife, Scotland, had no idea her new "husband" was still married.

She was left with debts of 55,000 pounds after he "ran away" in February last year, on the day he was due to be paid more than 100,000 pounds from a book deal which Mrs Wallace later discovered did not exist.

He was finally arrested in June last year.