His appearance may have changed dramatically, but it was the same old Peter Foster who finally fronted court after almost a year on the run.

Foster insists he’s spent the past 11 months caring for his frail 83-year-old mother and “living like a monk”.

Police, however, say they had information on him for the past month and believe he was living in the Byron Bay area with another man.

• Peter Foster in hospital

When they caught up with him under a tree on a property near Byron Bay on Tuesday afternoon, the long-haired and bearded Foster struggled with police during a dramatic arrest.

Displaying his trademark charm, he sought to make amends in court on Wednesday.

“He was very co-operative, quite remorseful and in fact he actually apologised to me in the courtroom,” Detective Senior Constable Gary Sheehan told reporters on Wednesday.

Lawyer Terry Fisher said his long-time client was “shell-shocked” following his arrest but mainly concerned about being reunited with his mother.

“He’s effectively been living like a monk,” Mr Fisher told reporters.

Foster, 52, had complained of chest pain following the struggle with police at the large Ewingsdale property, with the arrest captured by television cameras.

He was dressed in a white hospital gown for his appearance at Tweed Heads Local Court and pleaded guilty to resisting arrest and assaulting police.

Mr Fisher told the court Foster had unknowingly fled from detectives believing a television crew had been chasing him, and that when he reached into an officer’s holster he hadn’t realised he’d grabbed a gun.

The fraudster was convicted but not further punished.

The Nine Network says it tipped authorities off to Foster’s whereabouts while police say they acted on information from a “community source”.

“We had information for the last month or so that he was in and around the Byron Bay area, but not a specific location,” Superintendent Stuart Wilkins said.

“We believe he was living with another male person, but we’re uncertain how long he had been there.”

Neighbour Sam Buckle said he remembered Foster from previous media coverage but he wouldn’t have recognised him if he had seem him in the area.

“He looks like so many of the old guys that come out of the hills around Byron, so he probably blended right in,” Mr Buckle told The Courier-Mail.

Foster was taken to the Southport watch house and is expected to be transferred to Brisbane’s Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre on Thursday to begin an 18-month-prison sentence handed down a year ago.

The jail term is for Foster’s part in the sale of the bogus SensaSlim weight loss oral spray, which swindled about $6 million from 90 investors.

The court rejected an appeal in March this year, as Foster refused to hand himself into authorities and claimed to be living in Fiji.

The conman has previously served jail terms in the UK, US and Australia, mainly for fraud.

-AAP