Professor David Canter’s troubles began when he discovered his email account had been compromised, after friends alerted him to emails purporting to be from him and asking for money.

The director of the International Research Centre for Investigative Psychology subsequently secured his account, resolving the issue, but then received a phone call from a fraudster who claimed to be from BT.

Professor Canter told The Times his “idiotic mistake” was believing the authenticity of the phone call and inadvertently granting the caller access to his bank accounts by installing software at their behest.

He lost £18,000, but was able to recover the funds after several weeks when he reported the fraud to his banks.