The British woman at the centre of a Netflix documentary on how she allegedly tricked her son into funding her expensive lifestyle has been charged with fraud in Singapore.
Several people have claimed that Dionne Marie Hanna, 84, also conned them, leading them to file police reports after watching Con Mum, according to local media.
Hanna, a Singapore resident, allegedly took money from these individuals with promises to reimburse them from her inheritance from Brunei’s royal family – lineage that her son has called into question.
The con is not dissimilar to the one she pulled against former MasterChef contestant Graham Hornigold after she contacted him in 2020, claiming to be his biological mother.
A DNA test later proved that Hanna was Hornigold’s mother, but she deceived him in other ways to get him to fund her lavish lifestyle, eventually leaving him in massive debt.
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Charged with five counts of fraud, Hanna appeared before a district court on Saturday via video link while convalescing in the hospital. An investigating officer accompanied her, Singapore’s Channel NewsAsia reported.
Hanna is accused of manipulating three men in Singapore and France into transferring her money that she claimed she needed to cover legal fees and the opening of new bank accounts. She assured them she would pay them back and even donate to various mosques.
Hornigold questioned his mother’s claims that she was terminally ill and part of the Brunei royal family in the documentary, claims that she also later made to the three men who sent her funds.
While the exact sum her alleged victims sent Hanna remains unclear,preliminary investigations show she is involved in at least five cases of cheating with losses amounting to more than S$200,000 ($149,000; £115,400).
If convicted of these charges, Ms Hanna faces up to 20 years in jail and a large fine.
Con Mum, which was released on Netflix on 25 March, details the ordeal between Horniman and Hanna.
Netflix viewers have been left stunned while watching the true crime story.
It details how when Hornigold was reunited with his mother after 45 years apart, he couldn’t wait to make up for lost time.
Born on a British army base in Germany before being raised in St. Albans by his father and stepmother, Hornigold said they ‘never spoke’ about his mother.
Throughout his childhood Hornigold – who went on to become a successful pastry chef and has appeared on MasterChef– was also beaten by his alcoholic father. He pursued a career as a chef to have a ‘roof over his head, somewhere warm and access to food.’
So, when in 2020 he got an email out of the blue from his biological mother, he was ecstatic, if wary that she may be a scammer.
It quickly became apparent that Dionna Marie Hanna was his mother, and the pair planned to reunite.
After receiving that initial email, Graham and his wife Heather travelled from London to Liverpool to meet his mother for the first time.
‘We bonded right away, and I knew this was my mum,’ he recalls in the documentary.
As he got to know Dionne it became apparent she was incredibly wealthy, splashing out on luxurious hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants and designer clothes.
She even bought her son a Land Rover worth £74,000, as well as another car for his wife so she ‘didn’t feel left out’.
Dionne explained her wealth came from owning land, farms and businesses worldwide. But she said the primary source of her seemingly never-ending income came from being the illegitimate daughter of the Sultan of Brunei.
Despite this seeming far-fetched, Graham had no reason to question her – especially when staff at luxury hotels and designer stores knew her well.
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But within a year of meeting, Graham would discover her shocking web of lies that left him hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt and questioning his very identity.
As time passed, Hanna began to leave Hornigold and his friends to pay her enormous bills – Hornigold said in the film that he lost £300,000 – and then his mother suddenly disappeared.
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The film suggests that Hanna had previously been convicted in the UK for shoplifting and fraud.
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