The mother of all cons
By JOHN ASKILL THE SUN

A blonde stuffed a towel under her blouse in a bid to trick a judge into believing she was pregnant — and spare her boyfriend from jail.

Claire Jardine, 28, stood in the witness box and gave an impassioned performance.

She claimed to be Amanda Burton, a nurse who was five months pregnant with crook Paul Eaton’s child.

Jardine told Judge Richard Benson the baby would need its father and promised to look after Eaton at home.

But the judge had been tipped off about the scam — and had Jardine arrested the moment she stepped down.

The conwoman then whipped out the towel, handed it to court staff and said: “You’d better have the baby.”

Jardine — who had NEVER met Eaton — was yesterday jailed herself for six months after admitting trying to pervert justice.

A court heard she had agreed to help the crook after being asked by her real lover John Wright.

The two men had become pals in jail. Wright phoned Jardine and told her he could save Eaton from five years’ jail and she would be well rewarded. But prison staff monitored the calls.

Jardine went through the charade at Leicester Crown Court.

Defending Jardine, Graham Buchanen told the same court yesterday: “This girl is really rather stupid and the gravity of what she was doing was not apparent to her.”

Wright, 36, and Eaton, 46, were also given six months’ jail for perverting justice. Eaton got a further six months for using a stolen credit card.

Jailing the three defendants, all from Leicester, Judge Peter Morrell said: “These courts form a well of justice and this well must not be polluted by the sort of conduct you engaged in.”

Celebrity battle over 'safe house'
By Richard Simpson The evening Standard

LONDON - Supermodel Elle Macpherson and socialite Jemima Khan are in a race to buy the same £10million house in Holland Park.

They both want the seven-bedroom property, which features a colossal indoor heated pool, because of its highly sophisticated security systems after both suffered break-ins at their London homes.

Macpherson, thought to be worth £50million, was burgled in Notting Hill in May, and Khan - heir to the £1.4 billion fortune of her late father Sir James Goldsmith - was at her Fulham home during a harrowing burglary attempt.

A source said: "They are definitely both after the house. Jemima was most interested in it because of the security. She's very security conscious and she also wanted somewhere detached."

Khan - the 28-year-old wife of former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan - was forced to barricade herself and her two children in a bedroom when a knife-wielding burglar broke in. The family's bodyguard was woken by the commotion and confronted the raider.

Though the man attacked him, the guard managed to trigger a burglar alarm and scare off the would-be thief. The attacker fled emptyhanded, leaving the family shaken but unharmed.

Khan has since revealed she knew her family was being watched before the raid. Her suspicions were aroused when two men stopped her boys' teacher to ask questions about them. A guard was hired soon afterwards.

But, as a result of the break-in, Khan has told friends that she doesn't feel comfortable in the house, despite a security review.

Sydney-born Macpherson - pregnant with her second child - is also interested in the house as a safe environment to raise her family-The 39-year-old lives with Swiss financier Arpad Busson. After they were burgled earlier this year Macpherson was said to be shocked that her state-of-the-art security system did not deter the raiders.

Speaking of Macpherson's interest in the new house, the source added: "With Elle, she loved the three children's bedrooms at the top of the house. She thought they were really quaint and charming. She thought there was plenty of storage space for the toys.

"She also loved the sunken pool and the gym. She has seen it three times already - and it's only been on the market for a couple of weeks.

"She has already been in meetings with a firm of architects about changing a lot of the internal rooms."