Real life trumps Hollywood. Guru cons French Aristocracy out of millions

A 'guru' who is accused of cheating three generations of a wealthy and aristocratic French family out of their fortune went on trial on Monday .

For a decade Thierry Tilly brainwashed 11 members of the de Védrines family into believing that their lives were threatened by a secret masonic plot that only he could save them from, say investigators.

After persuading them to barricade themselves first into their ancestral chateau then within a suburban house in Oxford and employing what police described as "acts of torture and barbarism", he is accused of tricking the family into handing over up to €4.5m (£3.6m).

At the Palais de Justice in Bordeaux on Monday, Tilly, 48, went on trial for "fraud, abuse of weakness, violence against the vulnerable, and holding people against their will for up to seven days".

The story of the de Védrines and Thierry Tilly is as mysterious and convoluted as the plot of a Dan Brown novel, to which it is has frequently been likened. Investigators and lawyers are at a loss to explain how the small, bespectacled law school dropout and failed businessman with a conviction for fraud, convinced the de Védrines to part with their home, along with the family silver and their entire fortune.