Victims of timeshare swindler John Palmer are furious that he is being allowed to hang on to his multi-million pound fortune.

Palmer, who is known as "Goldfinger", was ordered to pay �33.2m when he was convicted at the Old Bailey in May 2001 of an estimated �30m scam in which holidaymakers were tricked into buying timeshares.

But at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday the confiscation order, a record sum at the time, was over-turned.

We all lost a lot of money and he just marches away

Victim, 79

Now Palmer will only have to pay �2.3m in compensation to his hundreds of, mostly elderly, victims.

York pensioner John Davidson said: "It is wrong if he gets away with not losing his money. We all lost a lot of money and he just marches away."

Mr Davidson, 79, and his wife Vera paid a deposit of �4,200 in monthly instalments for a timeshare from Palmer, and were offered �19,500 for the one they already owned.

When the old two-week timeshare was not sold, they stopped making payments and the new apartment was taken away from them.

Heartache

Mr Davidson, 79, said: "It is ridiculous that this man does not have to pay up.

"I was compensated for my financial losses but nothing pays for the heartache we have suffered."

Palmer, 51, from Battlesfield, near Bath, Somerset, is one of the richest men in Britain and once ranked alongside the Queen in the Sunday Times Rich List.

He acquired his nickname and being acquitted of handling proceeds from legendary �26m Brink's-Mat bullion raid at Heathrow in 1983.

Assets frozen

Last year, he was jailed for eight years for the fraud in which he was alleged to have swindled 17,000 people, many of them pensioners.

He was accused of using fast-talking salesmen and a complicated network of companies to carry out the deception in Tenerife.

His assets have been frozen since the case and his appeal against the confiscation order.

They will remain frozen until the Appeal Court judges give their reasons for Wednesday's ruling in October, and the Crown Prosecution Service decides whether to appeal against the decision, the CPS spokesman said.