A man obsessed with the idea of creating a film studio complex at St Agnes committed substantial, sustained and sophisticated frauds in a bid to finance the project. On Friday he was sent to jail for four-and-a-half years.

Alexander Swan involved friends, without their knowledge, and created a fictitious company to help him dishonestly obtain £1.8 million of Objective One grant money.

Swan paid the penalty for his dishonesty when he was jailed at Truro Crown Court on Friday. He was also banned from holding any company directorship for 13 years.

Judge Philip Wassall told Swan, the man behind the South West Film Studios project which went into liquidation in 2004, that he must have known from the start that the company did not have the financial resources from private investors and bank loans to meet the grant aid regulations. But he had gone ahead.

"You must have realised you had to embark on a fraud from the start and everything that stemmed from it was entirely foreseeable. This was a sophisticated, elaborate and open-eyed fraud. I accept your motivation was not to line your own pockets, what you desired was to see the film studio became a success. That was your passion that drove you, a fundamentally decent man, to do these things to push it through."

Swan, a married man who lived in London, had pleaded guilty earlier to four charges of forgery and seven of obtaining a total of £1,816,920 by deception Prosecutor Andrew Oldland told the court that Swan used the names of friends to purport that the company had the finance available to match the grant aid. They had been unaware of what he had done until approached by the liquidators requesting payment for shares listed in their names.

Swan had created a fictitious company and forged letterheads to created invoices and had also forged bank statements to satisfy the Government Office of the South West that money was available. He had created a paper trail to cover up his fraudulent actions.

At one point, said Mr Oldland, Swan had staged a South West film exhibition, paying £100,000 for a half-share in the Aston Martin used in a James Bond film. Also on display was the Ford Anglia from a Harry Potter film. The Aston Martin had subsequently been sold for £52,500 and the proceeds paid into his personal account.

Swan was arrested on April 19, 2005, and when interviewed accepted responsibility for many of the forged documents.

The project, which had begun with Swan and his uncle Derek Swan, a local builder-farmer, each putting up £75,000 to purchase the site of a former model village, remains partially completed. It has been acquired by new owners who currently have plans to develop the studios, added Mr Oldland.

Defence counsel Thomas Kark asked the Judge to accept that, from beginning to end, Swan had aspired to create a film studio in Cornwall in which films would be made for the benefit of the local community.

"He did not set out to profit from it personally and the purpose was not to line his own pocket. The quality of the build was in Derek Swan's hands and any deficiencies in that respect cannot be laid at the defendant's door."

Mr Kark stressed that when the company went into liquidation it was partly due to Swan's efforts that the site had not been sold for development but to somebody who wanted to develop a film studio.

Detailing his early years, counsel said that Swan, a dyslexic, had been very good at sport, swimming for Northamptonshire, but at 18 had suffered serious injuries when, as a pedestrian, he had been knocked down by a speeding car. It had taken two years for him to walk again. He qualified as a water skiing instructor, and in 1988 went to Australia where he became interested in making films. In 1989 he studied for a degree in civil engineering and construction but continued his involvement in films and after meeting his wife in 1993 became a film producer, in 1996 working on a feature shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

The St Agnes project stemmed from a meeting with his uncle, who had already applied to the Cornwall Enterprise Council for funding, and with whom he was very close at the time.

"But the friendship has now turned to something bordering on emnity," he said.

Referring to the film exhibition, Mr Kark said it had attracted considerable public interest, running for three months and employing about 40 people. A feature film had been made and completed and two others started. A partnership with Falmouth College of Art had led to a number of students working on films and some had progressed their careers in the industry.

"Swan's wife poured money into the project. She put up the original money for the site, paid the interest on a loan, and for legal advice to stop the administrators from under-selling to a developer."

Mr Kark submitted a number of character references and called two witnesses, Olivier Castagne, a former investment banker, and Charles Cory-Wright, QC, who respectively said that Swan had an excellent reputation in the film industry and was not motivated by personal gain.