A WICKED DECEPTION
She boasted of being a top cancer specialist, gave hope to her terminally-ill friend with promises of a transplant — and even shaved her own head in sympathy with her child patients. The only problem? It was all ...
FOR Angela Murray, visits to the Inspire salon were always as much about the coffee and chat as having her hair done. And after she was diagnosed with a rare lung disease, the 59-year-old treasured her time among friends more than ever.
So when the salon owner suggested that one of her other customers might be able to help Mrs Murray, she had no reason to doubt her.
The other client was called Julie Higgins and, like Mrs Murray, she had been frequenting the salon in Poole, Dorset, for many years.
But rather than the bobs or blow-dries others requested, Higgins always asked for her hair to be cropped close to her scalp. The reason, she explained, was that she was a surgeon and cancer specialist at the worldfamous Great Ormond Street Hospital.
If children had to lose their hair through chemotherapy, wasn’t having hers shaved the least she could do?
Introduced to Mrs Murray, who was by then in desperate need of a lung transplant, Higgins promised to help.
The 54-year-old claimed during their first meeting that she could find a donor either in the UK or abroad, where she often travelled to help with medical emergencies. Mrs Murray was overjoyed. ‘I have just met an angel who has promised she is going to help me,’ the sales manager told a friend.
And in the months that followed, it seemed that Higgins really would deliver.
On more than one occasion Mrs Murray received a text message to tell her a donor had been found and to pack her bags and go ‘nil by mouth’ — ie, not eat anything for 12 hours, as an operation could be imminent.
The messages came not just from Higgins but from another phone number said to belong to a nursing colleague of hers. But each time Mrs Murray’s hopes were dashed, either because the donor was said to be unsuitable or relatives had refused to give permission for the transplant.
But, in truth, Higgins was a fraud. She wasn’t a surgeon or even a doctor — in fact, her only medical expertise was as a first-aider.
After Higgins was rumbled when claims that she had been on an aid convoy in Syria unravelled, Mrs Murray was informed that she had been duped. She died weeks later.
Higgins was arrested and appeared in court last month, where she claimed she suffered from a disorder that made her a compulsive liar. Given her wicked deception, the judge said she deserved a prison sentence.
But the maximum sentence for impersonating a doctor is a fine, so Higgins was ordered to do just 200 hours’ community service and allowed to walk free from court — adding insult to injury for Mrs Murray’s family.
Mrs Murray’s husband Gregory said: ‘When Angela found out what Julie had done, she said to me: “How can a woman do that to someone who is terminally ill?”’
‘Her health deteriorated rapidly. Before then, she’d said she was going to fight, but she lost hope. A month later she died in my arms.’ The Murrays had met 40 years ago and been married for 30 years. Medical issues meant they couldn’t have children, so Mrs Murray dedicated herself to her career, becoming a manager with an electrical goods firm.
Meanwhile, 59-year-old Mr Murray worked at a steam railway, helping to restore and maintain rolling stock, buildings and track.
‘We were soulmates,’ he said. ‘We loved walking, cycling, the sea. We had such a good life and were looking forward to our retirement.’
But seven years ago those plans had to be shelved when Mrs Murray had a rare lung disease diagnosed, similar in effect to cystic fibrosis.
Highly debilitating, it quickly began to restrict her breathing. She gave up work and needed a supply of oxygen around the clock. With no cure available, her only hope was for a lung transplant.
But, as the years passed and her condition worsened, Mrs Murray and her husband began to fear she wasn’t a priority for the NHS.
‘Ange was 59 and I suppose if you were a surgeon and had a choice, who would you give it to: a 25-year-old or a 59-year-old?’ said Mr Murray, from Swanage, Dorset.
It was as hope ebbed away that they were introduced to Higgins.
‘She was an existing customer of one of the stylists I took on, and she was introduced to me as “Julie the surgeon from Great Ormond Street”,’ Jacquee Elvin, the owner of the Inspire salon, told the Mail.
‘I never had any reason to doubt it. She would come in about every two weeks. She had her head shaved, which she said was because she dealt with lots of children with cancer. She said it made them identify and relate to her better.’
Higgins would sometimes arrive at the salon in what looked like a medic’s uniform, explaining that in her spare time she helped out the health service locally.
She would also claim she regularly travelled abroad to help out after natural disasters or in war zones. Through her work with the Red Cross, she claimed to have met Princess Diana and other members of the Royal Family.
‘She was normally very good at keeping her appointments, but she would cancel around the time of a disaster,’ recalled Mrs Elvin.
‘When the earthquake happened in Nepal, she said she was there digging children out of the rubble. And on the first anniversary she said: “I won’t be in next week because we’ve got the memorial for the families.”’
During one appointment, Mrs Elvin mentioned Mrs Murray’s health problems to Higgins. She offered to speak to her and her husband, and the meeting duly took place at the salon in 2015.
‘She turned up in blue trousers and a green top, like a surgeon might,’ said Mr Murray. ‘She told us she worked at Great Ormond Street and gave us all this information about my wife’s condition.
‘She was saying the way the NHS had treated Angela was disgusting and she would make sure she got her a transplant.’
Both Mrs Elvin and Mr Murray say they had niggling doubts — but Higgins seemed to have wide medical knowledge and an answer for every question.
And, as Mr Murray says, what other choice did they have?
‘Angela thought the NHS had given up, so she pinned all her hope on Julie Higgins,’ he said. ‘I could see my wife was deteriorating. I would have grabbed at any straw.’
And so the deceit that would span the next 12 months began. Higgins asked for Mrs Murray’s list of medication and NHS number, so Mrs Murray believed she was who she said she was, despite never meeting her in a medical setting.
Mr Murray continues: ‘One day she texted my wife and said to her: “Angela, I think we have got lungs that are going to be good for you. I’m flying into Germany. Do not eat anything until you hear from me.”
‘So my wife packed a suitcase and waited, and then at 4pm got another message saying: “I’m so sorry, but the guy’s parents would not allow us to take the lungs”.’
MR MURRAY says the same thing happened more than half a dozen times, including following the terrorist attack in Nice last July.
‘She said she had to go out there because the French doctors wanted her to help, and she was hoping she might get some lungs there for Angela,’ he said.
Adding credence to her claims were messages supposedly sent by a colleague of Higgins using the name ‘Squibs’, a surgical nurse.
In one exchange, ‘Squibs’ contacted Mrs Murray to say that a ‘100 per cent match had been found’. But later that evening she texted to say the lungs were ‘too badly damaged’, although ‘Ju tried for hours to save them’.
As time went on and doubts grew, the claims became more extravagant — finally leading to Higgins’s undoing. Last September, she claimed she was going to the wartorn Syrian city of Aleppo to help care for injured children.
Mrs Murray and Mrs Elvin then received a text from ‘Squibs’ claiming Higgins had been attacked and raped while with a Red Cross convoy. ‘Squibs’ said that if Higgins did not ‘make it’, she wanted Mrs Murray to have her lungs.
Subsequent texts claimed she had received a visit from Prince Harry while in hospital in Syria.
With alarm bells ringing, Mrs Elvin probed her story. A search of the internet revealed that Prince Harry was on a tour to Norway.
‘When I realised I’d caught her out, I didn’t feel relief — I felt sick,’
she said. ‘I realised if that was a lie, then it was probably all a lie.
‘I phoned Ange. She didn’t want to believe it at first, but then phoned back and said she agreed she was lying. She was an intelligent woman, she just wanted to believe there was hope.’
Both Mrs Elvin and Mr Murray told Higgins never to contact them again, adding that they were going to inform the police.
Meanwhile, the realisation that she had been lied to had a devastating effect on Mrs Murray.
‘She was dead within three weeks,’ her husband says. ‘She lost hope. My Angela had to die, but for another woman to do what she did to her — I can’t get my head round that.’
Worse, Mrs Murray died believing Higgins was unlikely to face any criminal sanction.
It was only after her death in October last year that police learned from Mrs Elvin that she had been giving Higgins free haircuts as a gesture of thanks for all she was supposedly doing.
As a result, Higgins was charged with one count of fraud by false misrepresentation and another of impersonating a doctor. The fraud offence related to obtaining £80 worth of free haircuts.
Higgins admitted both charges and appeared at Bournemouth Crown Court last month to be sentenced.
Judge Donald Tait said he would have jailed her ‘without batting an eyelid’, but that the maximum sentence under the Medical Act 1983 for pretending to be a doctor was a fine.
Because of the small sum involved in the fraud, he said, he could not jail Higgins for that either. Instead, she received a criminal behaviour order, a 12-month community order and 200 hours’ community service.
‘The misery and anguish you inflicted on the Murray family was quite appalling,’ the judge told Higgins. ‘You created false hope in somebody who was seriously unwell. This was quite deliberate — you gained pleasure from pretending to be medically qualified. I hope you appreciate the heartache you have caused.’
THE court heard Higgins had been cautioned for impersonating a doctor in 2007. It was said she had received £700 from someone to fund an operation. It is understood she had repaid the money before police became involved.
It was claimed that her latest deceit had no financial motive.
Defending, Berenice Mulvanny said Higgins had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. ‘She does accept the behaviour is unpalatable. She caused pain and suffering to Mrs Murray’s family,’ she said.
‘There was no financial or personal gain to her behaviour. It wasn’t done maliciously — she didn’t seek out Mrs Murray as a vulnerable person.
‘If anything, her behaviour is just clear evidence of someone who is incredibly mentally unwell.’
Higgins attempted to justify her actions to her local newspaper. She told the Bournemouth Echo: ‘I rang her [Mrs Murray] twice a week to keep her going and support her. She relied on me and said I was her “sanity”. Her family were getting more and more desperate, and so was I. I was feeling the pressure of keeping her going.
‘When I’m under pressure and feeling vulnerable mentally, I tell lies compulsively and exaggerate who I am or what I do, even believing I’m someone else. There are no words to express my grief, remorse and sorrow for the unintentional hurt and damage I have caused to the people around me due to my mental condition.’
Approached by the Mail at her three-bedroom semi in Poole, Higgins declined to comment.
Although she told the Murrays she was a widow whose husband had died in an accident, Higgins lives with her wife, an older woman who is understood to have worked as a landscape gardener.
Other details about Higgins are sparse, although the court was told that in the past she had taught first aid to schoolchildren.
While her conviction will at least put paid to that, her victims’ fear is what she could do next.
‘I’m devastated and I worry she can just do it to someone else now,’ said Mr Murray. ‘To put my wife through what she put her through — I’ve never met someone so evil. I have lost all faith in people. I don’t believe in anything any more.’