Aussie policeman testifies how he was conned by identity thief

A POLICEMAN who dated "Catch me if you Can" thief Jodie Harris has told a jury he was deeply in love before her true identity was revealed to him.

Sen[ior] Constable Andrew Twining, a suspended motorcycle policeman, dated Harris for five months before a fellow police officer told him about her criminal background, the County Court has heard.

The court has been told Sen-Constable Twining, now 40, was "mad keen" on Harris and began to write an emotional outpouring entitled "Deceptions of the Heart" after he was betrayed. Defence counsel Andrew McKenna said the writing centred on how Harris's lies had hurt his client "to the core". "She'd exploited his love," Mr McKenna said.

Sen-Constable Twining met Harris on an internet dating site in February 2006.
Yesterday he told the court she pretended to be a cabin supervisor for Virgin Blue Airlines. Harris had official uniforms, staff badges and even company stubby holders to complete the charade.

"I think it's fair to say I was deeply in love with my perceptions of what I thought Jodie Harris was," Sen-Constable Twining told the court. "She presents as charming, funny, smart, jovial."

The court was told Harris - once Australia's most wanted woman - had a history of impersonating police and had dated up to three serving policemen before she met Sen-Constable Twining.

She was found to have Sen-Constable Twining's police badge after he helped investigators arrest her in Sydney on July 6, 2006. "(She's) a conwoman," Sen-Constable Twining said of his former flame.

"The person that I thought I knew was not the person who was imprisoned (for identity fraud)."
Sen-Constable Twining said Harris regularly stayed at his Donvale unit and would have had access to the home while he was on an overseas cruise with his parents between May 17 and June 24, 2006.

He has pleaded not guilty to possessing an imitation revolver found in a cupboard in his unit on July 12, 2006. He has denied any knowledge of it. Mr McKenna said yesterday that a criminal like Harris would have had motive to possess a handgun.

Prosecutor Aaron Shwartz said while Harris was not a woman people would normally "take home to dinner to meet the family", she had never been linked to a gun in her time as a criminal.