The fake doctor who was jailed last week for carrying out procedures on his dying fiancée previously cancelled a trip to the Vatican, where he said he worked as a "troubleshooter" for the pope, after wrongly claiming that his father had died.

The Sunday Tribune has uncovered a litany of deception committed by law student Michael Ward. The 32-year-old was jailed for five years last week after pleading guilty to recklessly endangering the life of his then fiancée by pretending to treat her cancer in late 2006.

Ward told friends that he was living in the papal nuncio's house in Dublin and had been appointed to the board of a cheese company by the Bishop of Cork in order to choose vintage cheeses for the Catholic hierarchy.

The church was so impressed with his work that they gave him his own Vatican apartment, he claimed.

Ward, from Little Island in Cork, gave his fiancée a house in Ringsend but the real owners returned and told her that he was merely house-sitting for them.

He also cancelled a trip to his holiday home in Cape Cod after saying he needed an operation to cure a serious pancreatic condition.

Ward was previously investigated for stealing €27,000 from an employer, failing to pay €3,600 rent, ordering two Mercedes cars from a Dublin dealer but never returning to collect them, and causing a road accident without having insurance, which led to his employer being sued.

Gardaí, led by detectives Mike Smyth, Kevin Keys and Niall Hodgins, launched a major investigation after his victim came forward and told them that Ward had carried out medical procedures on her and told her she was cured. However, she later found out she had terminal cancer.

The woman met Ward in June 2006, and he told her he was Michael O'Brien, a paediatrician based at the Mater Hospital.

In August, she told him she suspected she had a bladder infection and that she had gone to the Well Woman clinic.

Ward insisted he would treat her himself and told her she had an abscess.

He took a urine sample and gave her antibiotics which he obtained with a prescription book stolen from his flatmate, who is a dentist.

The following October, Ward twice inserted a syringe into the woman's vagina, leaving it in place for an hour and three hours respectively. She later realised the syringe was from her teeth-whitening kit.

The day after the first procedure, he used the woman's laser card to buy her lingerie and boots in Brown Thomas and stole more than €7,000 from her bank account.

Ward told her that he had to cancel a trip because his father had had a heart attack and died. However, his father is still alive and appeared in court with him. Ward also falsely claimed he had a twin brother who died in a car accident aged 11 while his father was driving.

However, his deceptions quickly unravelled once his girlfriend discovered that he was not a doctor but a law student.

Consultant urologist Mr Kiaran O'Malley told the court that he had "no doubt that her being delayed the appropriate medical attention has caused serious harm".

The woman had a tumour removed in November 2006. Halfway through her evidence last week, she had to stop to have chemotherapy treatment.