A fraudster posed as the daughter of a deceased elderly friend and cremated the older lady behind her family’s back during a £14,000 fraud, a court heard yesterday.
Figen Akin, 45, pretended she was Iris Waite’s natural-born daughter at Kensington and Chelsea Registry Office to get her hands on the death certificate.
The divorced mother-of-six, of Dhonau House, Longfield Estate, Bermondsey then used the document to cash out the pensioner’s £10,000 life insurance policies and empty £4,000 from her two bank accounts.
She fought the case, but the Inner London Crown Court jury rejected her evidence that the late Mrs Waite saw her as a daughter and had fallen out with her own family.
Akin was convicted of wilfully making a false declaration at the registry office on August 9, 2016 and two counts of fraud by false representation regarding the insurance policies between August 4, 2016 and January 20, 2017.
She was also found guilty of two counts of theft relating to the bank accounts she emptied. No money was recovered and it is unlikely Akin will face confiscation proceedings due to lack of assets.
“Clearly the money that did belong to the deceased is all gone,” said Recorder Timothy Clark QC. “The aggravating feature is the victim was deceased and there was an act of perjury to the registrar.”
He sentenced Akin to two years imprisonment, suspended for twelve months, plus twenty days of a probation-ordered activity requirement.
Akin befriended Mrs Waite in 2015 after receiving a psychic reading from her daughter Kim and became an unofficial carer with access to her PIN and bank cards.
“I’ve always known her as ‘mum’ and I was the named ‘next of kin’ with her GP and hospital,” Akin told the trial.
“I was getting the same that mum was getting out of it, companionship. We would sit there for hours talking, it was fantastic.
“I did not even know she had life insurance until she passed away and did not know how I’d afford to get her cremated.
“She said she didn’t want any of her family to get anything, nothing. She had no one that cared, only me.
“No one visited or called her, even near the end. I loved her like a mum.”
Mrs Waite lived in sheltered accommodation in Earl’s Court and Akin said she would clean and take her shopping. “I would take night buses across London to look after her.”
Akin told the jury there was a huge falling out with daughter Kim when Mrs Waite was hospitalised with heart problems. “Kim told me she had an argument with mum and was swearing and shouting at me.
“She was screaming: ‘I’ve had enough. You have to choose. Me or mum’. I said I would not leave a sick woman in hospital and Kim said: ‘I don’t care if she dies. I don’t want to know. Don’t contact me.’
“I was there every day, even if I was ill.”
Recorder Clark told Akin: “You became a friend and then a carer of Mrs Waite, but did not identify her at that time as a victim you intended to defraud upon her death, which you eventually did.
“She had a difficult relationship with her daughters and did have a will that others, other than you, would be the beneficiaries of upon her death.
“I reject that money you withdrew was with her permission and once you started withdrawing money, which you thought of as wages, it just became too attractive to you.
“There was a large amount taken out of her bank the day before she died and that must have been by you.
“When she died you took very little time representing to others you were her daughter and next of kin and the beneficiary of her two life insurance policies.
“You represented to the registrar that you were her natural-born daughter and I have listened to recordings of you talking to the Halifax bank and you confidently represented yourself as her daughter without pause.
“You obtained the death certificate by representing you were her daughter and next-of-kin and you lied through your teeth that you had no way of contacting her children even though you had a number for one of them.”
Close family associate Victor Wood, the executor of Mrs Waite’s will, said in a victim impact statement it was particularly hurtful to the family they were excluded from the funeral and prohibited from paying their last respects.
“Akin just saw her as a way of making money and in a calculated way took advantage of an older woman,” he added.
Akin’s lawyer Ibrahim Hussein said: “She has never been in trouble before and this is an isolated matter. Out of compassion she provided support and regarded her as her own mother.
“The lady did refer to her as her daughter, but the defendant accepts she should not have presented herself as her daughter.”
No comments:
Post a Comment