£6,000 con of love cheat who lived three lives

Stacey Simpson, 25, told her boyfriends she was employed by Emirates Airlines when in fact she was an unemployed fraudster conning them and the council out of thousands of pounds.

Her glamorous ruse meant she was able to deceive all three men into thinking she was jetting around the world while she was seeing one of the others, who were all living within miles of each other in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

The conwoman was jailed for 10 weeks at Kirklees Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to 12 fraud charges at a hearing earlier this month.

The most serious dishonesty resulted in her fireman boyfriend, who was not named in court to spare his embarrassment, having two of his properties worth around £250,000 cumulatively, repossessed because she failed to pay the mortgages and pocketed the money herself.

She also deceived Qatari international student Abdullah Anthani, when she rented one of her boyfriend’s flats to him after it had been repossessed and pocketed his rent.

Prosecutor Howard Shaw said hapless Abdullah believed the defendant was his landlord when in fact it was the fireman – referred to as Boyfriend Number One.

When Abdullah returned from a holiday on February, 19 2011, 
he found the locks had been changed and he was unable to gain access due to it having been repossessed.

Six days later conniving Simpson met with him and proceeded to con him out of a further £1,000 by telling him that she needed £700 pounds for a month’s rent and £300 for mortgage arrears that didn’t exist.

When he was still unable to get into the property he phoned her and she claimed to be in Singapore working in her role as an air hostess for high-class airline Emirates.

In March an exasperated Abdullah contacted Kirklees Council and a joint investigation involving West Yorkshire Police and the Department for Work and Pensions began.

Mr Shaw said that on March 28, 2011, Simpson contacted the council to say she was going away for a few days because of the hassle.

The court was told she had a lot on her plate – as well as her involvement in the properties mentioned, she had in the past submitted a housing benefit claim for 19 Waverley Terrace, a love nest where Boyfriend Number Two was joint tenant.

The next day she flew to Majorca with Boyfriend Number Three – the day on which police turned up to her home in Huddersfield – where she had been living with Boyfriend Number One.

In all, over a period spanning 14 months, she deceitfully obtained £6,000 in a combination of housing benefit, job seekers allowance and council tax as well as £1,000 from Abdullah.

In mitigation, Sonia Kidd, said Simpson’s actions had resulted in tensions within her family, specifically with her sister and father.

“She has no-one to support her,” she said. “It is an incredibly difficult situation she has placed herself in.”

Jailing Simpson for 10 weeks, chairman of the bench Margaret Atkinson said: “These were multiple offences of fraud. They were aggravated in that they were pre-meditated over a significant period of time.”

Following the sentence, a former neighbour who had known the serial seductress when she lived at Equilibrium apartments complex with her fireman boyfriend described her as a ‘Walter Mitty’ character who lived in her own ‘fantasy world’.

The neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: “I’m not surprised at all to learn of this. She lived in her own little fantasy world, she was always coming out with these things and I wouldn’t believe a word of it.

“Stacey would be away for periods of time and one time I asked her where she had been and she told me she had got a job as an air hostess and had been travelling the world.

“She was always telling me stories about where she had been, but I didn’t really believe it. She’s a Walter Mitty-type character.”