Great American Imposter Tells All

July 27, 2006 — -- In the history of con artists, hoaxers and imposters, Christopher Buckingham, aka "the Great American Imposter," is one of the most successful on record.

The threat of a jail sentence has done nothing to shake him out of character.

ABC News' "20/20" spoke exclusively with Buckingham to find out who he really was and what had made him weave a web of lies.

For more than half of his life, he allowed the people around him to believe he possessed an elite British education.

He said he went to Harrow, the same school Sir Winston Churchill attended, and the hallowed colleges of Cambridge University.

He took on the upper-class accent of a British aristocrat, saying he was a nobleman. Even his children and wife believed the story he spun that both of his parents were dead.

Now, he tells "20/20" that none of it was true.

He says he never went to Harrow or Cambridge. He doesn't carry the title of Lord Buckingham.

His father was not a diplomat in Egypt. His parents were not killed in an air crash. He wasn't an only child -- he was the eldest of nine children.

Until recently, the imposter had sustained his deception perfectly, but a routine check last year on the French-English border set in motion the unraveling of his deceit.

The man who checked in, on a ferry crossing from Calais to Dover, said his name was Christopher Buckingham.

"I rolled up to the checkpoint in France, and, of course, they're immigration officials stationed on the French soil, who check British passports, and they just said my passport was of interest," Buckingham said.

Immigration officials were stunned. They found only one Christopher Edward Buckingham who had been born on Christmas Eve 1962.

According to records at the national registry of births, deaths and marriages in London, he had died when he was a baby, just eight months later.

Yet, this man insisted he was Lord Christopher Buckingham, a 42-year-old British citizen, computer consultant, and father of two.

Dave Sprigg had been a detective for more than 30 years. He knew the man was lying. He just didn't know why.

In his police interview, Buckingham said his father was in the diplomatic service.