Joyce Msokeri has been jailed for four-and-a-half years for fraud after posing as a Grenfell Tower survivor in a £19,000 scam.

The 47-year-old showed no emotion as she was sentenced at the Old Bailey for three counts of fraud against the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the Hilton and a number of charities respectively, and one charge of possessing a false document.

Msokeri, who was convicted on 15 March after a trial at Southwark crown court, told authorities she had escaped the blaze in west London last June but her husband had died. She was actually single and living miles away at the time.

Over the next few weeks, she filled a room at a Hilton hotel with donations from charities and individuals, and concocted an elaborate ploy to claim insurance on her fictitious partner’s death, the jury was told.

Msokeri claimed around £19,000 in cash donations, goods including electronics, handbags and dresses, and hotel costs. But prosecutor David Jeremy QC said she would have had access to funds totalling more than £200,000 had she not been caught.

When her scheme faltered, she preyed on a vulnerable man, getting him to play her husband, and telling investigators she found he had been living in a cave in Margate, Kent, where he was fed by tourists, the CPS said.

Msokeri, of Sutton, south London, subsequently repeatedly tried to frustrate justice by faking illnesses or a disability, including using a wheelchair for which she had no medical need, her trial heard.

Judge Michael Grieve QC said: “These are callous and contemptible, indeed disgusting, offences for which only a custodial sentence can be justified, and one of some length.”



He added: “Your greed in taking advantage of the situation you had created was insatiable.”

Kate Mulholland, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Joyce Msokeri has been sentenced today for fraudulently claiming money and accommodation intended for the true victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

“Her offences were not just about money but involved the exploitation of extremely vulnerable people, as well as the breach of trust of survivors, donors and relief workers.“Our prosecution showed she persuaded one vulnerable man to pretend to be her husband as part of her scam.

“This was all to satisfy her greed and she will now have to face the consequences of her dishonesty.”