A MAN who stole more than £25,000 from his lover while pretending to be a former police officer will need to pay just a fraction of the money back.

Carl McKno, 40, told Abingdon woman Debra Jeffries he had secured a hefty pay-off from a job and had become a Thames Valley Police firearms officer.

In fact he was taking funds from Ms Jeffries’ account and clearing his own debts.

The couple had first met when McKno was a delivery driver and were in a relationship for nearly a year.

McKno will need to repay £645.47, just two per cent of the £27,751.65 he took from Ms Jeffries and her mother between March and August 2015.

Oxford Crown Court heard he had £145.47 in a bank account and another £500 will be raised by selling off gardening and sports equipment.

Mr Recorder Andrew Burrows QC ordered McKno to pay £598.27 to his former partner and £47.20 to her mother.

That must be paid within three months or he will serve seven days days in prison.

McKno, of Lostock Lane, Preston, must also pay a £140 court surcharge.

He is due to be released from HMP Springhill, where he appeared via videolink, on September 25. He was jailed for 20 months on April 6.

He had admitted theft, doing an act falsely suggesting he was a police officer, two counts of fraud by false representation and making or supplying an article in the use of fraud.