CHERIEGATE fraudster Peter Foster could be brought down by a former Ipswich furniture salesman, The Evening Star can reveal today.Mike Carroll is a former manager at furniture retailer Brett's in Westgate Street, but left the company several years ago.

CHERIEGATE fraudster Peter Foster could be brought down by a former Ipswich furniture salesman, The Evening Star can reveal today.

Mike Carroll is a former manager at furniture retailer Brett's in Westgate Street, but left the company several years ago.

He is now a director of Foster's company Renuelle Ltd – and is handing over documents about the company to the Metropolitan Police fraud squad.

Mr Carroll, who used to live in Tanner's View off Bramford Road, Ipswich, and former England and Liverpool footballer Paul Walsh, have said they were duped into putting money into the company by serial conman Foster.

They each paid about £75,000 into a slimming pill dreamed up by Foster, who first hit the headlines in the 1980s as the lover of Page Three girl Samantha Fox.

Foster served prison sentences in both Britain and Australia for fraud. He featured on dozens of editions of Esther Rantzen's That's Life programme.

He is currently at the centre of the Cheriegate scandal after helping the prime minister's wife get a discount on two flats she bought in Bristol, where her son Euan is starting university.

Foster is fighting deportation to Australia, and it has been claimed Mrs Blair has helped him in his fight to stay in Britain.

The 40-year-old Australian said reports over the weekend that he was set to quit Britain and give up his legal bid to stay were "untrue and blatant lies".

Foster made the comments as he left the flat belonging to his girlfriend Carole Caplin, friend and lifestyle advisor to Mrs Blair.

Ms Caplin left her home in Holloway, north London, in a separate car just minutes before Foster.

Foster said:"At this stage of the appeal we intend to follow it through to its conclusion.

"But there is no suggestion that I have decided to return to Australia.

"I read the papers over the weekend and I did not recognise it as being about me. It was untrue and blatant lies."

Foster was set to release a statement later today in an attempt to draw a line under the affair.

He has warned previously that he has "plenty of ammunition" to aim at No.10.

But despite previously stating that he had "grenades' to throw at Downing Street, sources close to Foster said the planned statement was intended to bring "closure" to his part in the saga.

Senior Labour backbencher Clive Soley acknowledged yesterday that Mrs Blair had made a "disastrous" error by failing to be frank about her involvement with Foster.