Latest news with #ConMum
Dubai Eye
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Dubai Eye
Conned by Mum
Dane and Sana speak with Graham Hornigold from the latest Netflix documentary 'Con Mum' about his ordeal of meeting his biological Mother after 45 years which then ended in tears. Also talking all things Met Gala 2025, is this glamourous event outdated in this day and age?
IOL News
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Dionne Marie Hanna's luxury life exposed: fraud charges follow 'Con Mum' documentary debut
One of Netflix's latest documentaries, "Con Mum," had everyone shaking their heads in disbelief, and now, the woman at the centre of the chaos is officially facing fraud charges. The 84-year-old British pensioner Dionne Marie Hanna, made infamous for allegedly conning her son and swindling her way through luxury hotels and bottles of bubbly, has been charged with five counts of fraud in Singapore. The documentary, which dropped on March 25, follows the unbelievable story of how Hanna re-entered the life of her estranged son, pastry chef Graham Hornigold, in 2020. Claiming to be his long-lost mum, she reached out after decades of absence. A DNA test confirmed her claim, but that's where the heart-warming reunion ends and the wild ride begins. Hornigold alleges that after reconnecting with him, his supposed mother scammed him out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. She told him she was a globe-trotting entrepreneur with deep connections, and he believed her until the bills started piling up. As revealed in the documentary, Hanna's taste for the high life knew no age limit. The woman was living it up in five-star hotels, sipping on champagne, and running up bills that would give most of us heart palpitations. Now, court documents in Singapore show she allegedly lied to at least three people, including one man she convinced she was related to the Brunei royal family. Police in Singapore say they've received a string of complaints after the documentary aired and that Hanna is linked to at least five cases of fraud with total losses estimated at over £115,000 – that's more than R2.7 million. Despite the charges, Hanna didn't appear in court in person. Instead, she made a video appearance from a hospital bed at Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore. The reason for her hospital stay hasn't been made public, but at 84, it's safe to say her days of jet-setting might be behind her. So why hasn't she been locked up yet? According to authorities, her current health condition is being monitored, and her next court date has been set for April 11. If found guilty, she could be sentenced to up to 20 years behind bars. But let's be honest – with her age and health, it's unclear if she'll ever actually serve a full prison term. Some might say she knew exactly what she was doing, living large in the twilight of her life because, well, time was no longer on her side. But who knows, she might turn 100 years old if found guilty. As for Hornigold, he's left to pick up the pieces both emotionally and financially.
IOL News
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Whisked away by deception: Graham Hornigold's heartbreaking catfish tale featured in 'Con Mum'
Pastry chef Graham Hornigold unpacks how he was swindled by his 'Con Mum'. Image: Netflix If 'Con Mum' proves anything, it is that there are a lot of catfish out there and that they will continue to do what they do best. 'The Tinder Swindler', 'Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare', 'Inventing Anna' and 'Fanatical' are some of the streaming offerings that have exposed not just the deception and greed of con artists but also their lack of remorse. While this genre has proven to be a goldmine for networks, I've grown wary of watching the same gullible actions on repeat, albeit in different scenarios. With so many red flags, how are such responsible, learned people allowing themselves to be swindled? Sadly, their emotional baggage has made them susceptible to opportunistic individuals. Of late, there's been a lot of buzz around the Netflix documentary feature, which centres on Graham Hornigold, a talented and respected pastry chef who finds his life upended by a woman claiming to be his mother. Leading a fulfilled life, Graham and his pastry chef wife Heather Kaniuk were looking forward to becoming first-time parents. However, just before the arrival of their bundle of joy, correspondence from an 80-something Dionne Marie Hanna changed the course of their life. Having passed the test in terms of answering cursory questions, Graham and his wife agreed to meet his biological mother. Her nurturing demeanour saw them drop their guard, and he got to know his mother better. He wanted to make up for lost time, more so with his mother's ailing health. Her gregarious personality was underpinned by her lavish lifestyle. It was unsettling for the couple, who come from a middle-income background. Believing Dionne to be wealthy after her claims of belonging to the Brunei royal family, Graham and Heather found themselves being showered with expensive gifts like Range Rovers. Dionne then asks Graham to accompany her to Switzerland, where she needs to transfer all her assets into his name. However, the short trip gets extended and, while there, Dionne, unbeknownst to Graham, befriends and exploits a few other individuals. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕
The Independent
07-04-2025
- The Independent
Woman at centre of Netflix crime documentary Con Mum charged with fraud in Singapore
An 84-year-old British woman who featured in the Netflix documentary Con Mum for allegedly scamming her son out of £300,000 has been charged with multiple counts of fraud in Singapore. Dionne Marie Hanna appeared before Singapore 's State Courts via video link from a hospital bed on Saturday, unrepresented and accompanied by an investigating officer, local media reported. She was charged with five counts of fraud by false representation involving three alleged victims and subsequently ordered remanded for a week after her release from the Tan Tock Seng Hospital. She will next appear in court on 11 April. After the documentary aired on 25 March, several individuals in Singapore recognised her from the film and reported being defrauded by her, the Singapore police said. The authorities said the complaints began coming in on 28 March, the same day she was arrested. The alleged victims claimed Ms Hanna had employed similar tactics to those shown in the documentary against them: she falsely claimed to be ill with cancer and said that she wished to give away her fabricated fortune, often invoking ties to the Brunei royal family or promises of large donations to mosques and community services. In order for her to 'receive' her inheritance or support her charitable goals, she allegedly convinced people to transfer money for things like legal fees or the opening of overseas bank accounts, Channel News Asia reported. The victims are said to have believed her story and sent her money, thinking they would be reimbursed once her inheritance was released. If convicted, Ms Hanna could face up to 20 years in jail for each of the five charges. In France and Singapore, she allegedly duped a person named Paiman Supangat by posing as a terminally ill Brunei royal, convincing him to cover her legal fees and lend her shopping money under false promises of repayment and inheritance. She allegedly told the same story of her terminal illness and inheritance giveaway to deceive Mohamed Syafiq Paiman in Singapore. A third victim, Mohamed Ariffin, was allegedly misled into believing Ms Hanna intended to donate millions to local charities. The police said Ms Hanna was likely linked to at least five such cases with total losses to the victims exceeding £120,000. Con Mum tells the story of London pastry chef Graham Hornigold, whose life was turned upside down when Ms Hanna, claiming to be his long-lost mother, appeared in 2020. A DNA test, featured in the documentary, confirmed that she was indeed his biological mother. Presenting herself as a wealthy Brunei royal, Ms Hanna allegedly conned Mr Hornigold and other people out of hundreds of thousands of pounds, straining his relationship and leading to a breakup. Told through interviews with Mr Hornigold, his ex-partner and other alleged victims, the film ends with a video call in which Ms Hanna claims to be in Malaysia.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix's Con Mum Was Way Sadder Than I Expected It To Be, And I Have Thoughts
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. SPOILER WARNING: There are some major spoilers about Con Mum below. If you've yet to watch the new true crime documentary, please go check it out with a Netflix subscription before reading. I watch a lot of true crime shows and movies. I'm talking an unhealthy amount. That said, after watching so many documentaries about cults, kidnappings, and murders, I thought that Con Mum, a 2025 Netflix original wouldn't make me incredibly sad after watching, but that's what happened. The new documentary about a man reconnecting with his long-lost mother only to find himself entangled in an increasingly complicated series of scams and false promises was upsetting for sure, more than I could have ever imagined. Now that I've had a few days to think about Con Mum and gather my thoughts on what was one of the more unnerving and maddening documentaries I've watched on the 2025 movie schedule so far, I have to talk about it and why it made me so dang sad. Again, spoilers ahead… I was hooked pretty much as soon as I pressed play on Con Mum with its story about London-based pastry chef Graham Hornigold being contacted by a woman claiming to be his mother who wanted to reconnect after 45 years apart. I kept thinking to myself, 'Where is this going?' So I had to find out, and I'm glad I did. There are cons and then there's what happens in this riveting documentary. Over the course of the next hour and a half, I couldn't stop watching as I tried to figure out what was really going on with Dionne's story as layers to her story were peeled back to reveal even more outrageous claims (like she was the daughter of the former sultan of Brunei) and schemes by the mysterious 85-year-old woman. As it became clear that her absurdly luxurious lifestyle was built on lies and other victims' hard-earned cash (with similar stories involved), I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure it all out. You can call it the 'Catfish' effect, and you can call it muscle memory, but I spent a large chunk of Con Mum waiting for it to be revealed that Dionne and Graham had no relation. I mean, so many documentaries and movies about con artists, grifters, and scammers end with a person not being who they said they were, and I thought this was going to be the latest addition to the list. The signs were all there for this to be some legendary con artist who found a successful pastry chef online, dug around to find out he was given up for adoption as a baby, and had no contact with his birth mother. Dionne had a history of pulling off big cons, and was obviously a pro at this considering her lifestyle, and all her other victims' stories had me thinking Graham was just her latest target; someone she could take advantage of for a while and then split. I mean, at one point she was even going behind his back to con his friends and badmouthing him. I just kept thinking this was so random grifter thinking a few steps ahead before disappearing into the night. But it was something far worse… The moment in Con Mum where it is revealed that there was a 99.9 percent certainty that Dionne was in fact Graham's mother hit me like a wrecking ball. My heart just sank when this globe-trotting scammer with an incomprehensible number of victims was proven to actually be bleeding her own flesh and blood of everything: money, future, security, and the relationship with his own wife and son. Watching this unfold, I kept wondering how could you do this to your kid? How could you do something like this and carry on as if nothing is happening? How could you lie about having cancer to milk even more money from him and everyone around him? As a parent myself, the thought of lying to, stealing from, and using my three kids for monetary gain is something I've never considered because that's not what parents do. I'm not going to lie, I found myself getting angry with Graham throughout a large chunk of Con Mum. At times, I felt like he was willingly looking the other way whenever people like his wife or friends would tell him that he was being used by his mom. At the same time, I also kept wondering how someone could fall for one lie after another especially when Dionne's stories seemed too good to be true our outright lies. But then I really started to empathize with the latest in a long line of victims by the prolific and frighteningly successful thief. Once I started to think more about Graham's trauma (both lifelong and more recent) and how his life was turned upside down just when he thought he was finally connecting with his mom, I felt like a heel being so angry with him about seemingly being tricked into abandoning his wife and child. There were a couple of points throughout Con Mum where I thought things were going to work out for Graham and he would be able to pick up the broken pieces of his life and relationships, keeping his family together in the process. But that doesn't happen, at least when it comes to the family aspect. While it is true that the pastry chef was able to continue focusing on his successful career in London's food scene, he and his partner, Heather Kaniuk, decided to split. It was really upsetting to see Graham lose a shot at life with Heather and their son (both now living in New Zealand), due to there being a wedge driven between them by the whole situation that unfolded with Dionne. He was trying to build a meaningful relationship with his mom only to have it cost him everything in the end. Though Con Mum put me in a dark mood and bummed me out quite a bit, I still think it's one of the best documentaries on Netflix and definitely worth checking out.
