SINGAPORE: A British woman at the centre of a Netflix documentary where she is accused of conning a number of people, including her own son, will face more criminal charges in Singapore.
Dionne Marie Hanna was on Friday (April 24) handed 34 charges for alleged offences, including fraud and cheating. It comes a year after she was charged with five counts of fraud by false representation involving three alleged victims in Singapore.
The 85-year-old now faces 39 charges in total after she was accused in the documentary Con Mum of duping a number of people, including London-based pastry chef Graham Hornigold.
The documentary, which aired on March 25, 2025, showed Hanna meeting Hornigold in 2020 in Britain, where she claimed she was his long-lost mother.
She told him she was linked to the Brunei royal family and said she was terminally ill with cancer. Hanna allegedly used money he gave to fund a lavish lifestye.
A DNA test later proved that she was indeed his mother.
Hanna allegedly ran a similar ruse in Singapore, but after the documentary aired, police arrested her on March 28, 2025, after receiving a number of reports.
According to charge sheets tendered in the State Courts, Hanna told her victims was planning to use the money she raised to donate S$3 million to Masjid Khalid in Joo Chiat and S$2 million to Mawar Community Services, a non-profit organisation that works with former offenders and their families.
Court documents showed Hanna had claimed that she would distribute her wealth from the Brunei royal family to the victims, including her son.
For each charge of fraud by false representation, Hanna can be jailed for up to 20 years, fined, or both. - The Straits Times/ANN
