UK [Daily Mail] – Amid the blizzard of media attention that swept the political world this week one figure – and it was a remarkable figure at that – struck a distinctly bizarre note.

Just as our former Prime Minister was preparing to bid his final farewells to the nation, a generously endowed, 25-year-old Californian born soft-porn actress called Courtney Coventry sashayed into London to be interviewed by the police as part of the cash-for-honours inquiry.

Dressed in a figure-hugging, calf-length emerald green dress, and with a neckline that left very little to the imagination, Ms Coventry flew into Heathrow’s Terminal One on Tuesday afternoon, together with her 46-year-old husband John, to be met by a plain-clothed female police officer and whisked away to a central London hotel in an unmarked car.

Indeed so anxious were the Metropolitan Police to interview Coventry that they had even paid for her economy-class return ticket from Nice in the South of France.

But what on earth was going on? Why would the Met have the slightest interest in an American actress whose principal claims to fame are appearing topless in a 1997 television series called Hot Springs Hotel and being one of Playboy owner Hugh Hefner’s many former girlfriends?

The answer to that conundrum tells us much about the sleazy world of New Labour fund-raising, the atrocious judgment of Tony Blair’s fundraiser-in-chief Lord Levy (now for ever to be known by his nickname of Lord Cashpoint), and the extravagant ambitions of a young woman who likes nothing more than to luxuriate in the limelight.

It also reveals exactly how gullible New Labour’s leadership were in their dealings with a couple of transparently bogus ‘aristocrats’ who wanted, by posing as potential donors to the party, to use the British Prime Minister as a vehicle for their own tawdry ambitions.

For if we look rather more closely at Courtney Coventry and her husband – who glory in the titles of the Count and Countess of Rozel – we shall see that they are not quite what they seem.

They are not, for example, a Count and Countess by right of birth, or grandeur of their family. They purchased the courtesy title five years ago ‘for a few hundred pounds’ as a ‘marketing opportunity’.

So when Lord Levy ushered them to Mr Blair’s side three years ago and introduced them to the Prime Minister as ‘the Count and Countess’ they were being, shall we say, economical with the truth.

And how ironic that a couple who had already purchased a title should find themselves embroiled in a scandal about the sale of peerages, in a farcical story worthy of P.G.Wodehouse at his best – or perhaps Michael Caine and Steve Martin in their comedy film about two con men, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Certainly appearing alongside the Prime Minister at a splashy fund-raising dinner in 2004 wasn’t a bad achievement for a girl born Courtney Halford in California and a man who was once a travel agent from the Wirral.

But the truth is the Coventrys like to conceal that past and prefer to boast about their jet-set lifestyle, and their ‘homes’ in Los Angeles and the South of France. They like to appear glamorous and well-connected. As one acquaintance said this week: ‘There’s nothing John and Courtney love more than publicity.’

That is not exactly a surprise, as it no doubt helps to attract clients for the ‘Murder Mystery Weekends’ that the couple host in ‘Italy, France, England or the United States’, just as it makes their line of souvenir ‘collectibles’ – including mugs and plates that feature the Rozel ‘coat of arms’ – all that more marketable.

Certainly the Coventrys like to keep moving. In spite of their claims, the Mail could find no trace whatever of the couple’s residence in ‘the South of France’ this week, nor of any residence in Los California.

Indeed when the Mail approached Mrs Coventry’s mother Kathy, a lawyer who works in Ventura, California, for details of her daughter’s life and whereabouts she declined to return our repeated phone calls.

All this simply adds to the suspicion that their sudden, dramatic appearance in this country – at the very time when the Prime Minister they had so assiduously schmoozed was very publicly departing his post and (much less publicly) had just been re-interviewed as part of the cash-for-honours inquiry himself – was little more than another attempt to enhance their public profile.

Yet amusing though the case may be, it is also raises deeply troubling questions. How could this pair of third-rate chancers have got themselves pictured alongside the PM as potential major donors to the Labour Party, and even provided with an exclusive tour of Downing Street? And how could they have duped the Metropolitan Police team investigating the allegations that peerages were awarded in exchange for loans to the Labour Party?

For, in truth, the detectives seem to have fallen into very much the same trap as the fund-raising grandees of New Labour when it comes to this bizarre couple.

The police will not confirm it, but I understand that they invited the Coventrys to London on the basis of an e-mail from the ‘Countess’ that made a series of damaging allegations about Lord Levy, and offered documentary evidence to back up the claims.

But when the investigating officers actually interviewed them on Tuesday they found the evidence was nowhere near as convincing as they had been led to believe.

Indeed, the police said stiffly after their meeting with the former actress on Tuesday afternoon: “Having spoken to her personally, we declined to interview her and have no plans to do so.” Another police source added: “In effect, she was time-wasting.”

Be that as it may, the Coventrys’ purposes had been served. Their names were in the media again. It was hardly a coincidence, for example, that their arrival at Heathrow airport was ‘exclusively’ reported by a tabloid newspaper that had plainly been tipped off about her arrival. Mrs Coventry’s portentous ‘no comment’ as she was whisked away by two uniformed officers clutching her Louis Vuitton bag simply added to the drama.

Small wonder, too, that the same tabloid newspaper happened to know precisely where the actress was staying during her brief trip to London.

The Coventrys had informed the police that Tuesday was the only day they could ‘possibly come to England’, no doubt aware that it was the very eve of the Prime Minister’s departure from office.

One police source, who refused to be identified, confided: “In retrospect it looked like a publicity stunt and it certainly felt like one. We shouldn’t have fallen for it.”

Fortunately for the taxpayer, the police stopped short of picking up the Coventrys’ hotel bill in addition to the airfare from Nice that they had already stumped up.

So how did this farce come about in the first place?

The tale has its beginnings nearly four years ago, when the ‘Count and Countess’ telephoned the Prime Minister’s ever-energetic fundraiser, Lord Levy, out of the blue.

Though the briefest trawl of the internet would have revealed their titles were little more than a sham, Lord Levy and his team never bothered to go to that trouble after John Coventry informed them that his wife, ‘the Countess’, was an ardent supporter of Mr Blair and wished to make a donation to the party.

Even the actress herself admitted afterwards: “The fact that I had this film work in my past and the fake aristocratic title should have showed up in the vetting procedure. But it was clear Lord Levy and the Labour Party were only interested in how much money I could give them.”

Never one to miss an opportunity, she and her husband seized the chance to enter the Labour limelight, and – once they knew that Tony Blair would be attending – bought two £500 tickets to Labour’s fundraising gala in April 2004 at the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane. And as any professional actress would, the ‘Countess’ prepared herself in her best Hollywood style.

Wearing a revealing giraffe-print dress, with a trademark plunging neckline designed to flatter her 44in bust, not to mention striking bright-red lip gloss, she waltzed into the hotel’s ballroom well aware that she was almost certain to be one of the few women there under the age of 40.

The former actress did not fail to exploit it, meeting a host of apparently fascinated Labour men, including the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. “He spent most of the time speaking to my chest,” the ‘Countess’ commented cheerfully afterwards.

It wasn’t long before the silverhaired Lord Levy had taken her firmly by the elbow and ushered her towards the Prime Minister, telling Tony Blair, “This is the Count and Countess of Rozel” before adding in a somewhat quieter voice: “They are thinking of making a sizable donation to the Labour Party.”

“We talked about Mr Blair’s vision for the future,” the ‘Countess’ trilled afterwards, “and he praised America’s strong relationship with Britain. I also said it must be hard being Prime Minister and raising children.” (For the record, the Coventrys are reported to have two daughters, Ashley-Jane and Rachel.)

Meanwhile Lord Levy was getting down to business, informing the ‘Count’ that he ‘would need £300,000 from us’, as John Coventry put it afterwards, and went on to explain ‘how appreciative the party would be, especially Mr Blair’.

Lord Levy then told the Prime Minister he should arrange a tour of 10 Downing Street for the couple and invited them to tea at the House of Lords himself the following day. The tour of Downing Street materialised as if by magic, and tea at Westminster was duly taken.

By then the Coventrys had achieved their objective: publicity and profile. Though conversations about a possible donation continued with senior Labour Party officials for some weeks afterwards, the reality was that they made no contributions whatever to Labour funds.

That did not deter them from trumpeting their meeting with Tony Blair on their website, alongside their other ‘achievements’, including supposed business successes with the ‘Rozel Oil Corporation’ and the ‘Rozel Group France’ – neither of which could be traced.

In the wake of this week’s events, those boasts, along with all other details about the counterfeit Count and Countess have disappeared from the worldwide web as John Coventry has taken to explaining to those who ask that he has ‘retired’.

Who knows where he and his colourful wife may surface next. But as Mr Blair similarly adjusts to his new circumstances, this tale of the porn star, the Prime Minister and the PR stunt serves as a fittingly tawdry footnote to the end of the Blair era.