Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ South's Inside Out returns to Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One on 12 October with the tale of Erich Kofmel, a former Sussex-based academic now on the run from the police.

Presenter Joe Crowley goes on the trail of the philosopher whose victims claim he used his academic theories to defraud them of hundreds of pounds letting out non-existent holiday homes.

Erich Kofmel, a Swiss academic whose philosophy exhorts the use of others for his own ends, is known in academic circles for setting up his own educational establishment.

The Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society was based in rented offices at the University Of Sussex campus in Brighton.

And, while the centre had nothing to do with the university, Joe discovers that Kofmel did: he was studying for a Phd there.

But it is Kofmel's extra-curricular activities which have lead to the philosopher being wanted on suspicion of fraud by Sussex Police. In fact, as Joe discovers, some of the Sussex PhD student's crimes were traced to his university computer.

Kofmel's scam was simple: he advertised holiday apartments around the world and took payments upfront. Only, as Sam Enthoven and Plamen Gueorguiev found out, the apartments didn't really exist.

Sam, a children's author who booked an apartment for a trip to New York tells the programme: "It's the personal element of it, the fact we were communicating with him directly, on first name terms with the guy... There is a bare-faced element to it, and he probably feels very pleased with himself for being that bare faced. But it's wrong, it's not right. It's important that people trust each other and this guy's playing on that."

While former colleague, Alex Higgins, gives an insight into Kofmel's motivation: "I think that Erich chose a path that was very wrong that has hurt a lot of people. As far as I understand it he has used his philosophy for ill. That philosophy is there are creators in this world and there are second-handers. And he believes he is a creator and as a result can use people instrumentally."

And, as Joe discovers, it wasn't just those people seeking holiday lets who fell victim to the philosopher's fraud.

The first Piers Calascione heard of Kofmel was when he started receiving complaints from the fraudster's customers – he had stolen his address:

"He's stolen my identity, my address. He's used my address to present a legitimate front to people buying holiday accommodation online. It's despicable. The thing that gets me is that he's a high-profile academic. He's obviously a very intelligent guy. He's using his intelligence in a very corrupt way and if he thinks this is victimless crime it certainly isn't."

Kofmel was arrested on suspicion of fraud when he turned up to give a lecture at the London School of Economics a year ago but when he was released on bail he simply vanished.

Joe and the Inside Out team pick up the trail and so the search for the philosopher fraudster begins. Find out if they track down Erich Kofmel in this week's Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ South's Inside Out, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One, Monday 12 October 2009 at 7.30pm.

Also in this first edition of the new series we send Ben Southall, the successful candidate for the Best Job in the World – selling Australia – across the Solent to find out if the Isle of Wight can offer even more job satisfaction than a paradise home on the Great Barrier Reef.

Plus, we follow a former SAS soldier using his experience of post-traumatic stress disorder to set up a charity helping other veterans deal with the lasting effects of their active duty.

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ South's Inside Out, Mondays, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One, 7.30pm, or watch again at bbc.co.uk/iplayer.

HB