Australian conman Peter Foster - and former friend of Cherie - jailed for 4 years for fraud

Cherie Blair's former friend, conman Peter Foster, was sentenced to four and a half years in an Australian jail yesterday for fraud.

The 44-year-old ex boyfriend of Mrs Blair's fitness guru Carole Caplin admitted obtaining £130,000 from a bank in the Pacific region of Micronesia claiming it was for a property development but then using it to pay off credit card debts.

Foster has been in custody for 10 months and his elderly mother Louise said recently she expected him to be freed by the Brisbane court after time served was taken into consideration.

Last night she said she was shocked. "There have been unseen forces at work to bring him down," she said.

Foster hit the headlines after helping Mrs Blair purchase two flats in Bristol at a discount in 2002.

He has served time in Britain for using fraudulent documents to obtain credit.

The flamboyant playboy has been jailed on three continents for peddling bogus slimming products and using false documents.

He was arrested by Australian police in February as he arrived in Brisbane on a flight from Vanuatu, where he talked his way out of prison.

Foster led South Pacific police on an island-hopping chase this year, fleeing Fiji, where he was wanted on fraud charges, to neighbouring Vanuatu.

He left Fiji on an old Australian naval minesweeper, wading ashore on a remote Vanuatu beach.

When he was finally captured by Vanuatu police he was convicted of illegally entering the country, but according to Fosterwon an early release from prison after a long lunch with his jailers.

Foster's defence lawyer Brad Farr told the court that his client "had no experience in property development or travel development.

"He nevertheless was a person with big ideas that he at least believed would work."