Grenfell Tower fraudster is jailed
A MAN who pretended to be a victim of the Grenfell Tower disaster, committing a fraud of nearly £90,000, has been jailed.
Abdelkarim Rekaya enjoyed 209 nights in a four-star hotel, before being provided with a flat in Chelsea in the year after the fire.
The 28-year-old kept his head bowed as he was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court to four years and six months in prison.
Rekaya, from Tunisia, pleaded guilty at the same court in September to fraud by false representation and obtaining leave to remain by deception.
Rekaya, who came to the UK in 2008, listened to his sentence through an Arabic interpreter during yesterday’s hearing.
Judge Giles Curtis-Raleigh said: “You decided to use the situation to your personal advantage, to enrich yourself dishonestly, by plundering the public funds put aside to assist the genuine victims of that disaster in their hour of need.”
As well as fraudulently claiming accommodation, Rekaya was also granted 12 months leave to remain in the UK in November last year, through the Grenfell Tower survivors policy.
Prosecutor Catherine Farrelly told the court that Rekaya had claimed to be sleeping rough in the tower on the night of the blaze and had said he managed to escape through the front door. This was “a complete and utter lie”, she said.
His hotel bills totalled £60,000 and other bills including travel costs took the total to £88,183.70.
Mitigating, Anthony Metzer QC said his client had had a difficult life and fled Tunisia after being kidnapped.