‘Parasitic’ duo jailed for £125k Grenfell deception
TWO illegal immigrants were jailed yesterday for lying about living in Grenfell Tower so they could stay in the UK and pocket £125,000.
Elaine Douglas and Tommy Brooks were branded ‘parasitic’ by a judge.
They posed as survivors after the Government announced that illegal immigrants who lived in the tower could stay in Britain.
They plucked two names from the list of the dead and callously claimed they lived with them.
The couple spent eight months living in a fourstar hotel at a cost of £400 a night to the taxpayer. They also spent more than £20,000 on meals and clothing on pre-paid credit cards given to them by Kensington and Chelsea council.
During their stay, Douglas had the ‘breathtaking cheek’ to complain about her room and the quality of the food.
The couple entered Britain illegally from Jamaica on separate flights 16 years ago, but vanished before they could be deported.
They re-emerged when they posed as survivors and despite glaring discrepancies in their stories, officials granted Douglas, 51, and Brooks, 52, temporary leave to remain in the country.
Had they not been arrested nine months later, they would have been allowed to stay in Britain permanently and placed on a priority list for a council house.
Yesterday, Douglas was jailed for three years and three months and Brooks was jailed for three years. Passing sentence, Judge Nicholas Wood said: ‘I regard this case as a parasitic fraud in the wake of a human catastrophe.’
Douglas visited a Grenfell community centre called The Curve six weeks after the fire and claimed she lived with Brooks in flat 91 on the 19th floor. She said they survived because they had been at a party on the night of the blaze.
Douglas told aid workers that she had been too scared to come forward sooner because of her immigration status. She persuaded Brooks to concoct the same story and he visited The Curve ten days later and said he lived in flat 19, Isleworth Crown Court was told.
The pair later told a social worker they lived in flat 137 with Mariem Elgwahry, 27, and Mohamednur Tuccu, 44, who both died in the fire.
There were major flaws in their stories – flats 19 and 137 did not exist and flat 91 was on the 12th floor, not the 19th.
Douglas spent 276 nights in the Radisson Blu Edwardian Vanderbilt Hotel, running up a total bill to the taxpayer of £67,125. Brooks started off at the Radisson Blu before being moved to another hotel. His bill totalled £58,397.
They were finally arrested in May and admitted two counts of fraud by false representation and one of obtaining leave to remain in the UK by deception. Brooks’s lawyer Khalid Missouri said his client admitted his behaviour was ‘humanity at its lowest’.
In a statement read to the court, Grenfell survivor Edward Daffarn said: ‘It is upsetting beyond words to learn that the tragedy is being used by individuals to exploit our misery for their gain.’