MICHAEL HARRIS was to everyone around him a leading heart surgeon, pillar of the local community and loyal Freemason.
His car, a luxury Volvo, bore the personal registration “B4 DOC”. He even stuck a “Doctor on call” notice in his windscreen and carried the traditional black bag associated with doctors.
From the age of 14, he would accompany his father to a St Helens hospital where he worked as a charity worker and porter. A fascinated Harris was allowed to watch operations from a viewing room.
Aged 19, Harris first started telling friends and family he was studying to become a doctor. In fact, he only managed three months on a Wigan college chemistry course. He faked his own degree pictures to keep up his doctor charade.
Jailing him in 1999, Judge Gillian Ruaux told him: “You perpetrated a deception on your closest family and friends and the local community for many years.”