Soldier quits after Facebook claims of serving with SAS and killing 100 people are exposed as lies

It sounded like the military CV of a modern-day Flashman.

Jim McAuley boasted of being part of the SAS team that stormed the Iranian Embassy in 1980 and a paratrooper at the bloody battle of Goose Green in the Falklands War.

He had also served in Iraq and Afghanistan and claimed to have killed more than 100 men.

And just to convince doubters, he posed for a photograph wearing the paras' famous maroon beret and wings.

In truth, the closest McAuley had come to frontline troops was preparing their meals as an Army cook.

His lies were exposed when an outraged veteran caught him in a 'honeytrap' by posing as a female research student and duping him into detailing more and still less likely details of his past.

He has now resigned in disgrace from his most recent military post - as a cadet instructor at Fulwood Barracks in Preston - and issued a grovelling apology to all the real heroes he may have upset.

McAuley's extravagant claims, delivered on the social networking website Facebook, would have brought blushes from George MacDonald Fraser's fictional Victorian character, Flashman.

But they also made him an obvious target for sceptics. An unnamed ex-soldier contacted him through the site and, posing as an American student called Jenny Gilbert, drew him into 'her' confidence.

In an exchange of emails still accessible in an online Army chatroom, McAuley is asked whether he has ever been in the SAS - motto, Who Dares Wins - and replies: 'I did a spell with the boys in black but really can't say too much.'

Warning 'her' that 'email is not secure comms', he agrees to give her one word answers.

Imposter: Jim McAuley in the maroon beret of the Paras

Asked whether he was the first commando to abseil on to the Iranian Embassy balcony, he modestly replies 'Second'. 'Jenny' asks: 'Did you get the bad guys?' to
<p>which he answers, 'One.'

She goes on: 'Was it like the 007 spy stuff?' McAuley replies: 'Yes, a little bit.'

After begging her to send a photograph of herself, he 'jokes' that they could do a parachute jump together naked when she comes to Britain, and invites her to stay at his house in Chorley, Lancashire.

Elsewhere, McAuley boasts about serving in Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan and claims to have 'taken out' two enemy gun posts in the first Gulf War.

In the end, 'Jenny' could take no more and McAuley received an email telling him he had been rumbled.

It read: 'We who have been involved in a lot of those actions listed above take a very dim view of people like yourself who try to live off the glory of these actions, especially given that we have lost many comrades in them.'

The ex-soldier continued that, given that McAuley was a cadet instructor, 'we have a duty to inform the authorities of that fine organisation what kind of a man they have in their ranks'.

McAuley replied with an abject apology for his lies, saying: 'I am so sorry for offending the good men of 2 Para and I acknowledge the sacrifice they made. I have never been in the Gulf War, I have never been in Sierra Leone, I have never been a member of the special force and I have never taken part in any undercover operation.

'I was a member of the Army Catering Corps attached to 15 Para. I have never earned the right to wear military parachute wings, both UK and U.S., and will remove them from my uniform. Again I am so sorry for any offence.'

McAuley answered the door at his home wearing a dressing gown but refused to comment. Ironically, he has been a long-time Poppy Appeal organiser for the Royal British Legion in Chorley, raising thousands of pounds for ex-servicemen.