http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/16/nhamm16.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/01/16/ixhome.html By Tim Walker Filed: 16/01/2005 Even when the game was up for the soi-disant Michael Edwards-Hammond, he still couldn't help himself. "I am confident that I did nothing wrong at Windsor Castle," he told me outside Wandsworth police station after his arrest for allegedly impersonating a police officer within the grounds of the Queen's Berkshire home. "I've attended many functions with the princes - Charles, Andrew, Harry and William - at private households. I believe that the Royal Family will welcome this occurrence because it shows how lax royal security is. And perhaps, as Charles has commented to me, it should be the job of the Army's most elite unit to take charge of it. "If this episode results in our monarchy being protected as it should be protected, then I feel I've performed a service, not a crime. In terms of my forthcoming appearance in court, I will call figures from the world of television and royal circles who will speak in my defence." At an earlier appearance at Heathrow police station, he had gone further and told me: "I am considering calling Charles, William and Harry as witnesses. My case is being dealt with directly by [the then Home Secretary] David Blunkett and [the Metropolitan Police Commissioner] Sir John Stevens." Blame it on an early interest in drama at school or his time working as an estate agent in London, but Edwards-Hammond has long had at best a nodding acquaintance with the truth. As it became clear at Isleworth Crown Court last week - when, curiously enough, not one of his distinguished friends turned up to speak in his defence - the double-barrelled name is probably the most modest of the fabrications of this extraordinarily persuasive 36-year-old decorator's son from Bexhill-on-Sea. Over the years, plain Michael Hammond, Edward is his middle name, has duped a succession of supposedly intelligent people and organisations with his tall tales. When he telephoned the Metropolitan Police to tell them that he was a surgeon fighting his way through heavy London traffic to save the life of a child, they gave him a motorcycle escort. Other roles he has taken include a film producer - a ruse that has got him into numerous parties, gossip columns and the beds of aspiring actresses - and a "renowned" polo expert. Senior police officers are a speciality and those performances have resulted in innumerable innocent members of the public being searched on his orders, an Asian family being taken into custody and several harmless pedestrians being held at gunpoint near Downing Street. And he also found the time to strike up friendships with not only the Royal Family, but also Dannii Minogue, the singer; Jordan, the glamour model; Caroline Stanbury, Prince Andrew's former companion; and Renée Zellweger, the Oscar-winning actress. He was also best mates with Sir Elton John. They have all, of course, denied his fanciful tales. "I checked with Elton and he has never heard of Michael Hammond," says David Furnish, Sir Elton's lover. A spokesman for Clarence House repeated the line: "None of the princes can recall meeting this man. They meet hundreds of people at the polo matches, usually for just a second or two, so it is not surprising they don't remember him." While it is true that Hammond did accept newspaper "tip-off" fees for his tall tales about his own private life, fame or "validation" appeared to be the spur and there appears to be some sympathy for him. "People ask how could we have been taken in by him," one female socialite told me last week. "The fact is we didn't care. He was young, good-looking, amusing and heterosexual, and in London the women outnumber the men at even the most glamourous of parties." Jessica Callan, the wily editor of the Mirror's 3am diary, recalls seeing Hammond at Sir Elton John's post-Oscars party in Los Angeles last year. "I was used to seeing him at Bafta parties and lots of run-of-the-mill events, but this one was exclusive and I was staggered he had got in, but of course that wasn't enough for him. He called me over and said, 'Jessica, let me introduce you to my mate Robin Williams.' He shouted to Robin and he came over. That's the thing about people like Robin - they assume that they must have met this guy, but simply forgotten him, so they play along. They don't want to create a scene. That's what enables people like Hammond to go undetected for so long." There have been society conmen before - one thinks of Guiy de Montfort, who preyed on a succession of wealthy, vulnerable women - but selfdestruction seems always to be part of their make up. For Hammond, it was his doomed attempt to bluff his way into Windsor Castle and for de Montfort it was inviting Nigel Dempster to one of his parties. In no time at all, the great Daily Mail gossip columnist saw him for the phoney he was. If, instead of putting all their energy into deceiving people, men like Hammond had channelled it into nine-to-five jobs, you can't help but imagine that they would now be on the boards of FTSE 100 companies. Why did they feel such a compulsion to set themselves up for dramatic falls? "I think Michael felt shame about who he was and where he had come from," said a woman who had been "close" to him. "The trouble with shame is that it always seems to come with a subconscious desire for punishment." Hammond, who has 102 previous offences, most for fraud and deception and two for impersonating a police officer, will find out what his punishment will be on February 4, when he returns to Isleworth for sentencing. _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/
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