Timeshare victims bite 'Goldfinger'

John "Goldfinger" Palmer is to be sued for up to £80m by a group of his timeshare victims.

The convicted fraudster is worth an estimated £300m, and so is richer than the Queen. But he resides at her pleasure in prison, serving eight years after being convicted last year of conning up to 16,000 people by persuading them to buy his timeshare apartments in Tenerife through false assurances about their rental values.

Around 400 of the victims have already been awarded £2m by the courts in compensation. But the Timeshare Consumers Association and law firm Irwin Mitchell are looking for those who have not been recompensed and wish to sue for their money back.

Irwin Mitchell has already found 250 alleged victims who are interested, and will write to them next week to inform them of the launch of the legal claim against Palmer.

Palmer was to have had £33m of his wealth confiscated by the state but last month successfully overturned the order.

Efforts to contact Palmer's legal team were unsuccessful. However, it has consistently claimed he is innocent of fraud, and that he is being "persecuted" due to his acquittal in 1987 of handling gold stolen in the £26m Brink's-Mat robbery at Heathrow, which earned him his nickname.