The catchment area conwoman
‘Shameless’ mother faked living in OAPs’ £1m home to get her son into top school
AN ELDERLY couple told of their horror after a shameless mother pretended she was living in their home in an elaborate scam to get her son into a top secondary school.
Angela and Christopher Cole, both 82, hit out at ‘unscrupulous’ trainee conveyancer Bhakti Shah after she targeted them in a bid to cheat the system.
The pensioners were left out of pocket after they discovered they were building up council tax arrears despite always promptly paying their bills in full.
It emerged Shah, 38, had created fake bills and forged contracts and tenancy agreements to convince the authorities she was a resident at the couple’s £1 million semi-detached home in Edg
‘She is totally unscrupulous’
ware, north London.
The fraudster even visited the house to collect post from the elderly pair, telling them it had been delivered by mistake.
Shah, a paralegal who worked for a London borough council, used her property expertise in a bid to secure a place for her son at Mill Hill County High School.
But she has now been convicted of eight counts of using a false instrument with intent during the seven-month scam.
Shah was brought to justice after Mrs Cole contacted Barnet Council, whose fraud team launched an investigation. Mrs Cole told the Mail: ‘She is totally unscrupulous. This woman was training to become a lawyer, I understand – but I’d never trust a woman like that to sell my house.
‘I heard this kind of thing goes on everywhere but you can’t have people cheating the system.’
The couple spoke out after Willesden Magistrates’ Court heard Shah targeted the pensioners’ property because it fell within the catchment area of the oversubscribed school.
The fraud began after she applied for a place at the school, claiming she was going to build property on a patch of land which sits behind the elderly couple’s home and had been purchased by her ex-partner.
The Barnet Council schools admissions team rejected her bid, saying it could base applications only on current addresses. Shah then changed her story, claiming she lived in the property in front of the piece of land, which was in fact the Coles’ home.
After registering a water and council tax account at the property, Shah edited an email from EDF Energy to contain the new postcode and create a fake bill.
Shah’s lawyer Daniel Cavaglieri told the court that her son was now in a fee-paying school. He added that his client ‘wholeheartedly accepts what she did was wrong’.
District judge Lorraine McDonagh ordered a pre-sentence report and placed Shah on unconditional bail. Shah admitted eight counts of using a copy of a false instrument between October 2021 and May 2022. She will be sentenced next month.