British 'Con Mum', 84, charged with £115k fraud after being accused of massive scam on son in Netflix doc
7 April 2025, 11:35
A British woman accused of scamming her son on a Netflix documentary has been charged with fraud in Singapore.
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Dionne Marie Hanna is accused of taking victims' money and promising to pay them back with an inheritance from the Brunei royal family.
It was a similar scam to the scheme she is accused of using on Graham Hornigold, a chef in London, when she contacted him in 2020 to say she was his long-lost mother.
Hanna did turn out to be Hornigold's mother, a DNA test proved.
But he said in the Netflix documentary Con Mum that she scammed him out of £300,000 and then disappeared.
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In her latest case, she has been charged with five counts of fraud, and accused of taking S$200,000 (£115,400) from three men in Singapore and France.
She faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine if found guilty.
She allegedly said she was terminally ill and needed the money to set up bank accounts and pay legal fees.
Prosecutors also claim Hanna promised to give money to a mosque and a Muslim non-profit.
In the Netflix film, Hanna is shown to reunite with Hornigold during the pandemic.
She wrote to him claiming that she was the illegitimate daughter of the Sultan of Brunei.
Hanna initially gave Hornigold and his partner several lavish gifts - before leaving him to foot several large bills and vanishing.
The filmmakers also suggest that Hanna had already been convicted in the UK of fraud and shoplifting.
