Caught out on Facebook... £20,000 fraud of the ring
A BUSINESSMAN was caught out making a bogus insurance claim for his fiancée’s £20,000 diamond ring after she was spotted wearing it on Facebook.
David Hammond, 27, said the jewellery had been stolen during a holiday in Brazil.
He reported the theft to police in Rio de Janeiro then filed an insurance claim on his return to Britain in January last year.
But when the insurance underwriters spotted the telltale photo on his fiancée’s Facebook page, he claimed he had found the ring.
He f i nally withdrew t he insurance claim seven months later, the Old Bailey was told. Hammond, a partner in a furniture company, pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud against Aqueduct underwriters.
Yesterday Judge Charles Wide, QC, gave Hammond a six-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months.
The judge ordered him to carry out 200 hours unpaid work, spend three months on an electronically tagged curfew at his home between 8pm and 7am and to pay £300 costs.
Judge Wide told him: ‘This was thoroughly dishonest. You quite deliberately made a bogus insur- ance claim trying to con an insurance company out of £20,000.
‘False claims add to other people’s premiums, so this is not a victimless crime.
‘ Having been caught out because your fiancée was seen displaying the ring on Facebook, the insurance company asked loss adjusters to look at it and some three or four months after this bogus claim you told a pack of lies about it.
‘You didn’t even tell the whole truth to the police.’
Hammond, of Palmers Green, London, is a partner in Focus Furnishing in the city. He is due to marry his fiancée in September.
Detective Constable Patrick Einsmann, who led the City of London Police investigation, said: ‘Hammond thought his fraudulent claim would see him quids in but i t has i nstead left him heading down the aisle with a criminal record.’