Fake cancer patient jailed
POSTED May 28, 2009 - 12:28 | POSTED BY Cynthia Dunn
Last edited by Harpreet Bhagrath on May 28, 2009 - 13:45
Wallace`s trick
Wallace, the resident of Chepstow, South Wales, copied the website logo of the Valinder cancer hospital at Cariff and developed fake letterheads.
Using these letterheads, he wrote letters to the court, getting himself excused from coming to the court. The letters would state that he was under cancer treatment and was too ill to submit the evidence of the same in person.
Fraud discovered
The Judge, Roderick Denyer QC, became suspicious and inquired about James from the hospital. The hospital staff confirmed that they have no patient named James.
"They looked at the letters and confirmed they had no patient of this particular name and that they were forgeries," said Prosecutor Gareth James.
No sooner did the police ask him about the matter than Wallace confessed everything.
Guilty plea ignored by the judge
James`s lawyer, Steve Thomas, defended his client by saying he suffered from stress and has recently taken counselling from the charity- Mind.
Thomas also asked the judge to give some credit to James for his early guilty plea. But Judge Denyer said, “In my view, this is so serious that only a prison sentence can be justified.” James has been sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.
The Crown Court at Newport had found James guilty at several previous occasions too. He was imprisoned earlier in 1984 for 18 months for “trying to obtain millions of pounds” in a scam.
