A CONMAN tricked celebrity chef Rick Stein (pictured) out of almost £100 after seeing a scam on a television show.

Carl Nevill, 23, had seen the confidence trick on the BBC Three programme the Real Hustle and decided to try it out in real life.

He approached Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, North Cornwall, and other leading restaurants including Heston Blumenthal's the Fat Duck in Berkshire, and claimed a clumsy waiter spilt wine on him during a meal there.

He then e-mailed the restaurants a dry cleaning receipt for £9 that he had downloaded off the Internet and asked to be reimbursed.

But Nevill had never eaten at any of the restaurants. According to police, after he received the cheques, he would alter them by adding a zero, meaning he would make £90 on each fraudulent claim.

He was finally caught after staff became suspicious when he tried to cash four of the cheques at a shop in Maidstone, Kent. Nevill, from Croydon, Surrey, pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud by false representation and asked for another four offences to lie on file after appearing at Maidstone Magistrates' Court.

PC Steve Hobbs of Maidstone Police, said after the hearing: "Although people may be tempted to try out the cons portrayed in programmes like the Real Hustle, they have to remember there are also real consequences.

"Unlike the television hustlers, real con artists can cause untold misery and deserve to be dealt with accordingly."

Nevill was fined £200 and ordered to pay court costs as well as £90 in compensation each to the restaurants.

The Real Hustle shows people being conned using magic tricks, distraction scams and other techniques. Scams it has demonstrated that could be repeated without much technical know-how include taking a deposit on a secondhand car from a number of potential buyers and replacing a computer keyboard in an office with one that logs the keys that are tapped, in order to collect bank details and passwords.

The programme is meant to demonstrate how easy it is to be the victim of a scam, according to the BBC.

A spokesman said: "The Real Hustle arms individuals and businesses with the information they need to avoid being scammed. We in no way condone any criminal behaviour."

The popular programme, presented by magician Alex Conran, conjuror Ronald Wilson and model Jessica-Jane Clement, has run for six series.

Yesterday, Mr Stein was at the M&S store in Lemon Quay, Truro, to meet fans and sign copies of his latest book, Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey.

Mr Stein runs four restaurants, a delicatessen, patisserie, seafood cookery school and a 40-bedroom hotel in Padstow. He has made a series of cookery programmes for TV and written a number of books based on the philosophy of cookery.