THE SAFARI SWINDLER
Organiser conned tearful families out of hundreds with fake bus bookings
A HEARTLESS fraudster conned families out of hundreds of pounds for a nonexistent trip to a safari park.
Laura Watson, 29, charged adults £10 and children £5 for the bus excursion to Blair Drummond near Stirling.
Kids were left in tears when families turned up at a car park in Hamilton and realised they’d been ripped off.
Around 140 people from 28 families booked for the visit through the Hamilton Holiday Club on Facebook for the day after schools had closed for summer in June 2019.
Furious parents complained on social media before Watson was arrested at her home, where she started crying.
Watson, of Lanark, yesterday admitted obtaining £550 by fraud between April and June 2019. She was originally charged with taking £774.50 but prosecutors accepted her guilty plea to the lesser amount.
Depute fiscal Claire Green told a
court: “She had organised the two coaches but had not paid the driver, and police were asked and they then made efforts to trace the accused.
“It was noted there were a total of 28 complainers in respect of this matter and none were able to complete their journey to the safari park.”
Ms Green added that Watson told police, “I didn’t mean it”, before holding her head in her hands.
Watson’s lawyer Laura Kiernan told Hamilton Sheriff Court her client intended to pay the money back from her benefits.
Ms Kiernan said: “Making a compensation order would perhaps be the best way to do this.”
At the time of the fraud, victim Liz Keenan, of Blantyre, wrote on social media: “The kids have been let down. Some of them sat in the car park crying after they were taken off the bus to come home.
“To think that something like this could happen to children is horrible. It’s the start of their summer holidays and they’ve been hit with this. It’s such a shame.”
Safari park bosses later offered free tickets to victims of the cruel swindle.
Sheriff Moira MacKenzie deferred sentence on Watson for reports.