When 84-year-old Iris Jones looks back on her relationship with her Egyptian toyboy, Mohamed Ibrahim, 38, she’s filled with astonishment that she was so besotted. She genuinely thought they’d last forever, defying the sceptics who said he was just after her money.
But in June last year, nearly four years after they met, she finally saw him for what he was and realised that though she was bowled over by his looks and charm and the fact he was the first man she enjoyed sex with, it was all a sham.
Now she’s learnt from her mistakes and though she’s looking for love once more she’s determined she’ll never be taken in again – rigorously checking potential suitors for clues they’re a romance fraudster.
Iris says, “Our relationship was extraordinary to start with, it was like Mohamed woke me up sexually. The first time we made love, we were at it all night, and we had to get some KY jelly so we could carry on – we went through the whole tube. It was amazing. And he was kind and charming, always looking out for me.
“But at the beginning of last year he revealed his true colours, he was furious when he found out I was leaving my bungalow in Weston-Super-Mare to my sons, Stephen, 57, and Darren, 56. We rowed constantly over it, it became toxic so I asked him to leave.”

The couple had enjoyed a whirlwind romance. They met on a Facebook group for atheists in the summer of 2019 and soon moved to private messaging, chatting about anything and everything.
When Iris mentioned to Mohamed that she would love to see the pyramids, he invited her to stay with him and she flew out to meet him in November 2019.
She says, “By then he’d become very complimentary telling me how beautiful I was and insisting he was in love with me. I batted him away saying I was an old hag! But he persisted and by the time I flew out there I’d started to fall in love with him.”
“And when he met me at the airport he was holding a bunch of roses and twirled me round in the air that was it.”

Iris and Mohamed’s relationship moved quickly from there, she stayed for a month and they even wanted to get married but didn’t have the right paperwork. By her third visit in October 2020 everything was in place and they wed in a civil ceremony, followed by a KFC to celebrate.
Iris says, “At the time I was so happy, his family were lovely and he was so kind and caring towards me, leaving him behind was agony, but we had to wait for his spousal visa.”
In November 2021 Mohamed came to live with Iris in England, he got a job as a security guard in a local supermarket. And to start with they were happy, making love regularly and at other times curling up together to watch a documentary.

But in January 2023, Mohamed started to show a different side to his personality.
Iris says, “He was very money orientated and then when he found out I’d left the bungalow to the boys and not him, he was furious. We started rowing about money constantly and it became very toxic. By June I couldn’t take it any longer and asked him to leave. I was devastated of course, I’d really believed in our relationship, but the rose-tinted glasses had come off and I now think he was just after my money all along.”
Iris was initially bruised, she got a Bengal cat, Bo Jangles, and swore off men for good. But within a few months she missed male company and ventured into online dating.
She says, “What I’ve discovered since makes me suspect that Mohamed was a con artist. I’ve come across a few genuine men, but they haven’t ticked my boxes, I want a slender man, with his own home, who’s intellectual, clean shaven, younger but not 46 years younger and I love a man in uniform!

“But a lot of the men I’ve met are unmistakeably con artists. I’ve become the Miss Marple of romance fraudsters, I look for clues constantly to see whether they’re genuine. I can tell a mile off when they’re not real matches. They bombard you with love messages, like Mohamed did, making ridiculous promises from the start. There was one bloke called Roly who immediately started making huge declarations. He wrote in one message just a couple of days into ‘meeting’ online, “You are the first thing that comes to mind when I wake up and the last thing when I sleep. Thank you for making me happy. I hope to hear from you tomorrow. Goodnight my love”. It immediately rang alarm bells – how could I be his love after just a few messages?
“He also told me that his wife and daughter had died seven years ago – a sob story is often another sign they’re a scammer. And he also said he works away on an oil rig in Milan – another thing they do so they’ve got an excuse for a bad signal meaning they can’t do video chats. Sure enough soon he was asking me for my email address and home address claiming he wanted to send me some precious jewellery. I got a friend to do a reverse image search and pages came up saying that profile picture was one commonly used by con men.
“Another man claimed to be an artist and said he’d love to meet me but was going to Thailand to put on an exhibition. Though a reverse image search on his photograph didn’t bring up any other profiles, I did one on the painting he claimed to have done and it was done by a very famous artist and not by him.
“I play along with them, hoping they will focus on me and not some other poor unsuspecting woman who might fall for them. I’m determined to spread the word to warn other women. I know I’m not going to fall for it, once bitten twice shy! I still want to find love but not at any price, and believe me it can be a very expensive one, mentally and financially.”