Foster partners say: he conned us of £150,000

Former business partners of the conman Peter Foster will call on the police this week to investigate their allegations that he conned them into investing £150,000 in one of his slimming pill ventures.

A group of Mr Foster's former associates are expected to meet Metropolitan police detectives on Thursday, to present a dossier of evidence accusing him of fraud.

The group, including the former England footballer Paul Walsh and Mike Carroll, both directors of Foster's firm Renuelle Ltd, are handing over emails, faxes and business letters which they claim prove that Mr Foster duped them into supporting his venture.

The development will come as a relief to Downing Street officials, who now regard Mr Foster as dangerous fantasist, and who are anxious to discredit claims and allegations he makes about the Blair family.

Mr Foster, lover of Cherie Blair's lifestyle adviser Carole Caplin, has vowed to "tell all" in a statement tomorrow.

But they are also an embarrassment, because they provide further insight into the depth of Cherie Blair's gullibility in allowing Mr Foster to gain her trust.

Michael Dudley-Jones, Renuelle's marketing director, is understood to have approached Cheshire police nearly two months ago to complain about Mr Foster. Next week's meeting between investors and the Met arises from that complaint.

The fantasy world of Peter Foster was revealed yesterday in taped conversations in which he discussed with his mother a supposed visit to Downing Street that never took place. He gave his 71-year-old mother, Louise Pelloti, detailed advice on what she should tell journalists about the "visit" that never happened.

The conversation was one of several believed to have been taped by a hacker operating near Mrs Pelloti's Dublin home. Tapes of the conversations were leaked to The Sun.

Mr Foster is heard telling her: "You say, 'I was with him when he went to Downing Street. It was the night of his birthday we went there. Carole went upstairs and Peter and I stayed downstairs.'

"Don't stay out in the car, leave it vague – you know what I mean."

The Sun's revelations were a sign of a fightback by Downing Street's allies after days of relentless bad publicity over Cherie Blair's association with a convicted conman.

The taped conversations reveal that, despite his rancour against the Blairs, Mr Foster does not believe that Mrs Blair was misusing her position as a barrister. He said: "Cherie wasn't trying to influence the court or the judges."

He also confirmed that he sent the fax containing his deportation papers to Mrs Blair's Downing Street office, implicitly confirming Mrs Blair's assertion that that she never asked to see the papers.

Mr Foster also, perhaps surprisingly, denied to his mother that he had leaked the story of the Downing Street fax, claiming "there's a leak in Downing Street somewhere".

Despite this claim, Downing Street denied yesterday that they were looking for the source of the leak. A spokeswoman said: "We don't need to have a leak inquiry because we know full well where the leak comes from, and it's not from Downing Street." She also denied that Mr Foster or his mother had visited Downing Street, adding: "The man is a fantasist."

Another source, close to the Blairs, was less restrained, describing Mr Foster as "vicious" and "evil". However, Downing Street indicated that they are unlikely to take up an invitation to lodge a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about suggestions that Mr Foster may have been paid for information about the Blairs.

In the tapes, Mr Foster talked angrily about his frustration at not getting the £100,000 he wanted for his story. In a later conversation, his mother asked: "Will the Daily Mail still pay?" He replied: "I don't know. We'll see what happens tomorrow." He also described his girlfriend, Carole Caplin as "nuts".

As well as trying to make money from his connection withn the Blairs, Mr Foster has been fighting an order to deport him to Australia to face fraud charges linked to his TRIMit slimming pill, which he has managed to delay for up to two months by lodging an appeal.

That case is unrelated to his dealings with Renuelle, which are the subject of a Department of Trade and Industry investigation into claims that Mr Foster effectively acted as its managing director, despite being banned from holding directorships in the UK in September 2000.

Mr Foster was disbarred for five years after being convicted of using forged documents to bolster an earlier slimming pill scam in 1995, involving a company called Foremost Bodycare Corporation.

In June and July this year, Mr Walsh sank £75,000 into Renuelle, with three other "director investors" each putting £25,000 into the company – Steve English, Susan Grady and Anya Goldie. Ms Goldie is also known as Anya Tramell and is allegedly Mr Foster's former girlfriend.

Several of those investors are understood to have remortgaged their homes and borrowed money to invest into Renuelle, which Mr Foster set up in July to sell the TRIMit slimming pill via a network of sales agents in Britain.

"All I know is that the guy, when we put our money in, was never going to be involved in running the company. But once we did so, we couldn't breathe without him making every single decision," said Mr Walsh. "I honestly feel we've been defrauded out of our money." Mr Walsh also alleges that he has further evidence linking Mr Foster's accountant and solicitor to the Renuelle investment deal.

The accountant, who is facing unrelated fraud charges at the Old Bailey, provided Mr Walsh with a "letter of comfort" which verified that the Renuelle investment deal was genuine.