Jail for fraudster who made up Manchester terror victim daughter
A FRAUDSTER who made up a daughter supposedly seriously injured in the Manchester Arena suicide bombing was yesterday branded ‘vile’ by a survivor.
Susan Pain, 51, exploited her post as a trusted director of an insurance broker, earning nearly £40,000-a-year, to make fraudulent claims and bag £139,000.
To avoid arousing suspicion she put in claims under names of friends and relatives before pocketing the payouts as insurers fell for the scam.
But she was exposed after callously pretending she had a daughter called Sophie who was among those injured in May last year when Salman Abedi blew himself up at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, killing 22.
Two months later Pain claimed £2,500 she claimed she suffered in loss of earnings after her ‘daughter’ had been in intensive care after the attack. She used her real name, hoping to get away with the scam as she was known professionally by her former surname, Raufer. In reality, Pain had no children, and an investigation was launched after the insurer was unable to trace a victim with her name.
A complete review of claims she had processed was launched and multiple discrepancies were exposed.
After Pain was jailed for two years yesterday, Robby Potter, 48, who almost died in the attack after shrapnel from the bomb punctured his heart as he waited to meet daughter Tegan, 12, condemned her as ‘vile’.
‘It’s unbelievable how low someone would go,’ he said.
Pain had worked at the Liverpool office of insurance broker Money Medical Management since she was 16 and continued using her former name, Sue Raufer, a court heard. She oversaw a section of the business Vile: Pain’s 31 false claims which provided insurance for medical professionals to cover unexpected loss of earnings.
In one case, she claimed her friend’s seven-year-old son had leukaemia, while in another said her niece’s elderly mother was housebound after a fall.
In a third, Pain posed as an orthodontist who had taken a leave of absence as their daughter required open heart surgery and the hospital was far away from their home. She posed as a dental surgeon claiming £2,250 in lost earnings while doing jury service and as a GP who had to be reimbursed for £ 6,800 after their son was injured skiing.
In reality, all were completely fake – in total 31 false claims between 2010 and 2017.
To give credibility to her lies, Pain forged signatures and NHS documentation, sometimes swapping hands to disguise her handwriting.
To launder the money, she asked the friends and family whose names she’d used to receive the money into their bank accounts. Pain would tell them it was a work bonus and she would obtain a tax advantage paying it to them.
Oblivious they were involved in fraud, they would then for- ward the money to Pain, who lived in a £250,000 detached house in Kirkby, Merseyside.
Yesterday she was sentenced for two counts of fraud at Liverpool Crown Court after she pleaded guilty at magistrates’ court to claiming £ 139,000 through 31 fraudulent claims.
Michael Bagley, defending, said ‘She is going to have to confront a life where all her achievements are set at nought.’
Jailing her for two years, Judge Alan Conrad QC said: ‘I am sure all right-minded members of the public would be shocked you would use a tragedy which shook the nation.’
Detective Constable Ant Andrews, of City of London Police’s Fraud Enforcement Department, said: ‘ Pain exploited the tragic terror attack to make a financial gain.’
‘Unbelievably low’