A fantasist was jailed for two years today after conning police into thinking he was a James Bond-style secret agent.

Michael Newitt, 41, was sentenced at Leicester Crown Court for impersonating a police officer and possessing fake ID cards, replica guns and articles of police uniform.

Newitt arrived at Hinckley police station, in Leicestershire, claiming that he was “Commander Newitt” of the Metropolitan Police.

The father-of-five said he was on a counter-terrorism operation in the county and tricked an officer into giving him a new pocket book.

Newitt’s fake ID documents were carried in a leather wallet emblazoned with a crown. The letters CMG - standing for a high-ranking award fictitiously presented to James Bond in the story From Russia with Love - were printed after his name.

The failed businessman, from Osgathorpe, near Loughborough, even fitted his car with blue strobe lights and a siren and used the vehicle to arrest a suspected drink-driver on the M6 before handing him in to local police.

Officers were not alone in being taken in by his trick, Newitt’s wife also believed his stories when he said he was off on “special missions”.

However, the defendant was a “con man and fantasist” whose life had been “a spectacular illusion”, Leicester Crown Court was told.

In reality, Newitt was facing ruin after being prosecuted for failing to keep proper accounts.

His technological products business was close to collapse and he was struggling to meet payments on his car and mooring fees for his £200,000 motor cruiser.

Newitt’s offending began after he fell out with the manager of a marina when his boat was removed from its mooring in December 2006, the court heard.

Pretending he was an undercover intelligence officer, Newitt demanded that the cruiser was returned to his spot and served him with a copy of the Official Secrets Act.

The defendant then claimed he was from the secret service when he asked for a new car he was ordering to be fitted with blue strobe lights.

And he produced a fake ID, baton, and handcuffs and claimed to be an undercover police officer when his old Volvo was being repossessed. This time, a police officer believed his story and signed his notebook to acknowledge the confidentiality of his job.

But Newitt was finally arrested when a police officer with a military background became suspicious of his “Commander” title.

Officers subsequently seized three air weapons, ammunition, thunder flashes, shredded identity documents, handcuffs, a friction-lock baton and several non-functioning police radio handsets.

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