A fraudster who sold fake tickets to the rugby World Cup Final has been given a year to pay back the fans he ripped off.

Shabbaz Hamayun, from Glasgow, left England supporters stranded in France without tickets for the showpiece final last year.

The 25-year-old used a popular website to advertise tickets for the match, which he claimed he had to sell for family reasons. But he never owned any of the briefs and simply sent unsuspecting fans an empty envelope after they parted with hundreds of pounds.

Yesterday, Hamayun handed back £300 and said it would take him 12 months to hand back the full £2400 he stole.

Sheriff Robert McCreadie deferred sentence on him for three months and told him to keep saving at £150 pounds a month to give back to his victims.

The fraudster conned desperate England supporters into paying £400 per ticket for the final in St Denis, France.

They only found out hours before the final between England and South Africa, on 20 October last year, that they would miss out on the match.

Hamayun, who claims to work as a waiter, admitted two charges of fraud relating to the sale of non-existent sport event tickets.

He admitted that between October 16 and 19 last year he pretended to have three tickets, which he sold to Jonathan Elworthy for £1200. He also admitted selling the same non-tickets to Mark Holbeche, from Stratford-Upon-Avon, for a further £1200.

Hamayun, from Dumbarton Road in Glasgow, admitted getting both of his victims to pay the full sum into an account at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Perth.