Grenfell Towers fraudster will be out before first anniversary of tragedy

A ‘despicable’ conman who falsely claimed his wife and son died in the Grenfell Tower inferno to try and swindle £12,000 is set to be released before the first anniversary of the tragedy.

Anh Nhu Nguyen, 53, pretended he had lost all his worldly possessions in the deadly blaze that claimed 71 lives.

He went to the emergency centre trying to secure cash as well as accommodation from the funds reserved for victims by the council.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea put him up in a Holiday Inn while he continued to pester charities for clothes, shoes, food and electronic equipment collected to help people left destitute by the fire.

But it later emerged the fraudster had been living on the other side of London, in Beckenham, at the time of the disaster.

He initially gave police a string of bogus addresses, most of which did not even exist, while one belonged to a genuine victim whose son was cause ‘extreme distress’ at being quizzed over Nguyen’s account.

In an interview with Sky News, Nguyen spun a tragic tale of losing sight of his family on the smoke-filled stairwell before being told by fire fighters he could not go back for them.

He described cutting up towels and wetting them to try and keep the fumes at bay, before waking his wife and 12-year-old son and leading them out of the flat.

Recounting his supposed escape, he said: ‘The smoke was like fog. You couldn’t see anything, it was very hot.’

Nguyen described having to climb over dead bodies to escape, sobbing: ‘I’m sad, I’m angry, I cry. It’s terrible for everyone who lost family that day.’

The liar was even photographed being comforted by Prince Charles and shaking his hand days later during an unannounced visit to a memorial wall close to the tower.

Wearing a grey prison jumper and tracksuit bottoms, Nguyen appeared in custody at Southwark Crown Court today (Fri) to be sentenced for two counts of fraud and one of falsely claiming he lost his passport in the fire to apply for a new one.

He was jailed for a total of 21 months.

However, he will only serve half that sentence behind bars and with the time he has already spent in custody since his arrest last July, he is expected to be released in a matter of months.

After pleading guilty at an earlier hearing, Judge Philip Bartle QC called the offences ‘despicable’ and blasted Nguyen for trying to benefit ‘out of the misery and tragedy of people who genuinely suffered by this terrible fire’.

‘The appalling fire that occurred at Grenfell Tower in the early hours of 14 June of last year is no doubt seared in the memory of anyone who has known about that tragedy in which around 70 people died,’ he said when jailing him today.

‘Many others, their families and friends have suffered appallingly as well as those others who must have died a horrific death.

‘You have pleaded guilty to obtaining money and items by falsely claiming that you lived at Grenfell Tower with your partner and son.

‘You went onto considerable detail to persuade people that you did live in Grenfell Tower and had a partner and child who died in that terrible tragedy.

‘But none of it was true, and so you benefited when others should have received that money and, as the statements that have been read out indicate, your actions have had a lasting impact on others who have been appalled that somebody should seek to benefit for their own situation when others have lost their lives in this terrible tragedy.’

Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay said: ‘In the early hours of Wednesday 14 June 2017 a fire broke out at Grenfell Tower, in North Kensington, and many people died.

‘It was undoubtedly a tragedy.

‘This defendant falsely claimed to be a victim of the fire so as to obtain money and goods that were intended for the real victims of the fire.

‘The defendant gave a detailed account to police, a false account to police, as to what happened that evening.’

Nguyen told police he got home around midnight and ‘went up to his flat’ before waking up some time in the night ‘with noise’.

After seeing ‘smoke in the flat’ he went to a window and saw ‘people shouting’ as ‘flames and smoke’ climbed the walls.

He described how the three of them ‘took sheets and towels and wrapped them around each other and left the flat’, descending the stairs he recalled being ‘very hot and a big shock’.

Coming down from the 15th floor, he told police he last saw his son on the 12th floor and lost sight of his wife on the fifth.

‘The implication being they had died in the fire,’ added Mr Polnay.

‘If true, a heart-breaking account.

‘But it was false.’

CCTV checks showed nobody resembling Nguyen or any potential relatives exited the block while the fraudster could not be seen entering at the time he claimed to arrive there from work.

Similar enquiries at the restaurant he told police officers he worked at revealed they had never heard of him.

The court heard Nguyen pocketed £100 in cash along with accommodation at the Holiday Inn worth £1,940 commencing the following day on 18 June.

In the meantime, he also secured an overnight stay at the Hilton to the tune of £249.

Nguyen further fleeced the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea out of £260 in handouts on 19 June, £5,000 two days later and £100 on 26 June in addition to £121 worth of taxi fares.

The Rugby Portobello Trust was swindled out of a mobile phone and two laptops while Turn2us gave him £1,500.

Another charity, People’s Potential Possibilities parted with £1,000.

The fraudster also accepted at least £1,000 worth of food, clothes and toiletries donated by strangers.

Mr Polnay told the court Nguyen’s deceit has a number of victims.

‘The Crown submits that, perhaps unusually for offences of fraud, that there are a significant number of victims of this defendant’s behaviour,’ he said.

‘First of all, the real victims of the Grenfell fire.

‘Money and goods that were meant for them in their hour of need were diverted to this undeserving defendant.

‘Second, the son of a man who died in the fire was caused considerable distress by having to be asked about whether this defendant lived with his father.

‘Thirdly, those in the public who gave their own money to charities, expecting reasonably that it would reach real victims who needed real help and the charity volunteers who gave up their own time to help victims.’

In addition to those, as well as the council, Mr Polnay described how the police were hampered by having to ‘divert substantial resources away from investigating the cause and potential criminal liability for the fire, into this case’.

Community volunteer Loubna Aghzafi provided a statement setting out the feelings of ‘disgust’ and ‘disappointment’ at how ‘certain individuals were quick to make a profit from the Grenfell tragedy by making false claims and depriving real survivors of the help they need’.

Ms Aghzafi also expressed how her and her colleagues became ‘afraid’ when making decisions over who to trust in light of the false claims.

A genuine survivor of the blaze, Manuel Alves provided a statement setting out how he lost the flat he bought in the block.

‘His final sentence is a chilling one,’ said Judge Bartle, reading: ‘The actions of this fraudster has totally ripped the heart and faith of the Grenfell Tower community and I personally have lost the little trust I have in the system.’

Keima Payton, defending told the court Nguyen has ‘an astonishingly low IQ’ and ‘has been attacked repeatedly in custody’.

She said it was ‘astonishing’ for a fraudster to ‘put themselves in the spotlight’ whereas someone with a higher intellect surely ‘would have known this would end badly, as indeed it has’.

She claimed Nguyen was attacked ‘with a wooden implement’ just days ago on Monday.

‘I am in no doubt that this man suffered a very severe beating for which his body is covered in bruises and cuts,’ added Ms Payton.

She said his deceit ‘enabled him to feel part of a group, to be looked after wanted and welcomed’.

The court heard details of Vietnam-born Nguyen’s appalling criminal record containing 28 convictions for 56 offences committed between 1983 and 2015.

Those include 11 for fraud and 15 for theft.

His first conviction, over 34 years ago, involved theft from a meter and the dishonest use of electricity.

In 1985, he was convicted of obtaining property by deception before appearing in the dock again in 1989 for arson and various other offences.

Another spate of offending landed Nguyen in the dock the following year.

In 2001, he was jailed for 18 weeks for harassment ahead of a four-year sentence imposed for a separate offence of GBH with intent in 2002.

His most recent stint behind bars was a 15-month term imposed in 2012 for theft.

It previously emerged that he has no less than 17 aliases and despite apparently having lived in the UK for decades, with prosecutors confirming he is not a British citizen.

‘I do accept that you have a low IQ,’ the judge told Nguyen.

‘Whether you suffer from a continuing mental health problem, I needn’t come to a firm conclusion.

‘But what I am sure about is that whatever your low IQ, whatever the state of your mental health, that the offences to which you have pleaded guilty were ones which you committed knowing full well what the consequences were.

‘I do not accept that the actions were in some way to attempt to be part of a community and that you were in some way reaching out in order to be embraced by that community.

‘I am sure from everything I have seen and everything I have read that despite your low IQ you knew full well what you were doing.

‘You knew that you were taking advantage of those genuine victims at this terrible time of this terrible tragedy.’

Nguyen, of (182) Beckenham Road, Beckenham, southeast London, was jailed for a total of 21 months.

ends