Profiting from pain
Fraudster lied that her husband died in Grenfell She walked 14 miles to site to claim handouts She filled her room at Hilton with donations
A CONWOMAN who posed as a Grenfell Tower survivor and falsely claimed to have lost her husband in the blaze is facing jail after being found guilty of fraud yesterday.
Joyce Msokeri travelled 14 miles from her own flat to the smouldering tower block in west London and convinced charity workers she had survived the inferno, which killed 72.
She feigned trauma to obtain handouts of £19,000 in cash, food, clothing, three mobile phones and free stays at a Hilton hotel. The 47-year- old helped herself to so many clothes from help centres that she ran out of space in her room at the Hilton and piled up ten full suitcases in the concierge’s room.
Msokeri, from Zimbabwe, told volunteers her husband and sister-in-law both died when flames engulfed the tower block on June 14 last year. But when police became suspicious, she said her husband had been miraculously found in a cave in Margate, Kent, where he was being fed by tourists. Msokeri, who came up with the scam to pay debts of £15,000, is a divorcee who lives on her own in a flat in Sutton, south London.
Msokeri claimed to have spent the day after the blaze in a state of trauma, but it was revealed in court that she had actually spent an hour on the phone to Sky TV complaining about the bad signal at her home and being charged an extra £1.50 over an unpaid bill.
Hours later she exploited the chaotic aftermath of the disaster to obtain cash and other handouts at the Westway Centre, where volunteers were helping survivors.
As real survivors anxiously waited to learn about the fate of their loved ones, Msokeri used the money to pamper herself with a new hairstyle, beauty treatments and handbags. When there was no new underwear to fit her at the centre, she became so indignant that a manager bought her some with her own money.
The conwoman was assigned a social worker and police liaison officers to help her through her grief. But Msokeri insisted that the social worker be removed from her case when she was refused a fourth mobile phone.
During her trial at Southwark Crown Court, Prosecutor David Jeremy said she ‘took the opportunity to grab anything she could’ and that volunteers were so desperate to help the victims that there was ‘a culture or atmosphere that was ripe for exploitation by someone like Msokeri’.
Her story was called into question when she was unable to give the number of her flat in the tower, despite claiming to have lived there for five months. But she persuaded therapist Miriam Budeima to corroborate her story about her dead husband so she could claim even more money.
At a meeting with a police officer and social worker at the Hilton, she wailed hysterically when she was shown footage of the final moments of two men and two women in the tower.
She said one of the men was her husband ‘Sunhil’ – but he was actually a man called Gary Maunders. After the meeting, Miss Budeima told police Msokeri had concocted the story.
Later Msokeri persuaded a mentally ill ex-boyfriend to pretend he was her husband who had been discovered in Margate. Juma Hanlon went to hospital, pretending he was suffering from trauma, but a friend contacted police when he realised what Msokeri was making him do.
The defendant spent much of her trial in a wheelchair – even though there was no medical reason as to why she needed it.
Msokeri was convicted in her absence – after claiming she needed hospital treatment – of three counts of fraud and one of possessing a fraudulent driving licence. She will be sentenced on April 6.
After the trial, Detective Chief Superintendent Matt Bonner said: ‘The distress and suffering caused to so many that night in June is harrowing ... People lost their homes, all their possessions, and tragically their families and loved ones. It is terrible that this individual should try to profit from the pain of others.’
Another who took advantage of the chaos in the aftermath of the fire was Anh Nhu Nguyen, 53, a Vietnamese illegal immigrant who was comforted by Prince Charles after he lied that his wife and 12year-old son had been killed. He was jailed for 21 months after pocketing £11,270 from charities.
‘Grabbed anything she could’