A man who allegedly posed as a police officer during last year's UK riots has pleaded guilty to credit card fraud and is awaiting more charges. "Inspector Winter," whose Twitter account is still available here, claimed to be a plainclothes inspector who had been on the force for 15 years. In August of 2011, he gained fame for his Twitter and blog dispatches and wrote a column for The Telegraph, describing 125 hours of work, "too many of them being pelted by stones, petrol bombs and, in one case, in the chaos of it all, by a 4-foot ornamental palm tree." At one point, he passed through a police cordon and allegedly gave someone a ride in his official capacity.

Unfortunately, no such officer existed. Instead, "Winter" was actually Ellis Ward, a conman wanted for fraud in Wiltshire. Ward was arrested in February on suspicion of impersonating a police officer; he's now facing those charges as well as a count of kidnapping for giving the aforementioned ride while posing as an officer. Meanwhile, The Guardian has dug into Ward's media appearances, including a quote he gave for one of their own articles.