An 84-year-old British woman who featured in the Netflix documentary Con Mum for allegedly scamming her son out of £300,000 has been charged with multiple counts of fraud in Singapore.
Dionne Marie Hanna appeared before Singapore’s State Courts via video link from a hospital bed on Saturday, unrepresented and accompanied by an investigating officer, local media reported.
She was charged with five counts of fraud by false representation involving three alleged victims and subsequently ordered remanded for a week after her release from the Tan Tock Seng Hospital. She will next appear in court on 11 April.
After the documentary aired on 25 March, several individuals in Singapore recognised her from the film and reported being defrauded by her, the Singapore police said. The authorities said the complaints began coming in on 28 March, the same day she was arrested.
The alleged victims claimed Ms Hanna had employed similar tactics to those shown in the documentary against them: she falsely claimed to be ill with cancer and said that she wished to give away her fabricated fortune, often invoking ties to the Brunei royal family or promises of large donations to mosques and community services.
In order for her to “receive” her inheritance or support her charitable goals, she allegedly convinced people to transfer money for things like legal fees or the opening of overseas bank accounts, Channel News Asia reported.
The victims are said to have believed her story and sent her money, thinking they would be reimbursed once her inheritance was released.
If convicted, Ms Hanna could face up to 20 years in jail for each of the five charges.
In France and Singapore, she allegedly duped a person named Paiman Supangat by posing as a terminally ill Brunei royal, convincing him to cover her legal fees and lend her shopping money under false promises of repayment and inheritance.
She allegedly told the same story of her terminal illness and inheritance giveaway to deceive Mohamed Syafiq Paiman in Singapore.
A third victim, Mohamed Ariffin, was allegedly misled into believing Ms Hanna intended to donate millions to local charities.
The police said Ms Hanna was likely linked to at least five such cases with total losses to the victims exceeding £120,000.
Con Mum tells the story of London pastry chef Graham Hornigold, whose life was turned upside down when Ms Hanna, claiming to be his long-lost mother, appeared in 2020.
A DNA test featured in the documentary confirmed that she was indeed his biological mother.
Presenting herself as a wealthy Brunei royal, Ms Hanna allegedly conned Mr Hornigold and other people out of hundreds of thousands of pounds, straining his relationship and leading to a breakup.
Told through interviews with Mr Hornigold, his ex-partner and other alleged victims, the film ends with a video call in which Ms Hanna claims to be in Malaysia.
