A British former royal bodyguard was jailed for six years today for masterminding a 3 million pound investment scam.
Paul Page, 38, used a bogus property company and "outlandish lies" to con colleagues, family, friends and others out of savings, redundancy cash and pension pay-outs.
He then gambled much of it away, before squandering the rest on his luxury lifestyle and mounting debts, the Press Association reported.
Some victims, including those guarding the Queen, lost six-figure fortunes, their homes and even their marriages, London's Southwark Crown Court heard.
Page, of Grays, Essex, who joined the police in 1994 and moved to the royal protection branch in 1998, was found guilty of fraud committed between 2003 and 2006.
His victim tally finally totalled 57, including 20 serving and former royal protection officers at Buckingham and St James' palaces, one of whom, the biggest loser, was left 240,000 pounds out of pocket.
However, he used his trial to make a string of allegations about colleagues at work.
He claimed officers posed for photographs on the Queen's throne, peddled hardcore pornography and steroids, slept on duty, smuggled friends into royal garden parties and offered them Buckingham Palace parking spaces for West End shopping trips.
Original defence papers, ruled inadmissible by the judge, alleged that golfing enthusiast the Duke of York routinely asked members of the elite royal police squad to act as "ball boys" while they were supposed to be protecting him.
Page also said victims either knew their money was being invested in spread-betting, or trusted him so much they never bothered to ask what he was going to do with it.
Prosecutors branded his defence as "pie in the sky" and dismissed his "diversionary tactics" as no more real than "fairies at the bottom of the garden".
"The prosecution have described the scale of your fraud as breathtaking and so it was, breathtakingly dishonest, relentless and callous," judge Geoffrey Rivlin said.
The judge said apart from suffering the "painful and deeply embarrassing experience" of giving evidence, Page had thrown "quite appalling allegations" at his victims.
"One has watched in vain for any sign or recognition, let alone remorse, for the suffering which so many of your victims have been caused."