City of London Magistrates’ Court
(Picture: Gareth Fuller/PA Archive)A woman attempted to pull off a £3,000 insurance fraud by bogusly claiming her luggage full of designer clothes had gone missing on a luxury cruise, a court heard.
Chanelle Bell, 28, blamed the ship’s staff when she made fake claims to insurers AXA, suggesting her bags had been lost when she disembarked at Southampton after a 13-night family cruise to Barbados in 2019.
The mother of one, from Westminster, doctored and forged receipts to bolster the fraudulent claims, and made up a story about a pushchair being damaged to inflate the compensation she was seeking.
The insurance claims raised suspicions at AXA, who contacted the retailers to discover many of Bell’s supposed possessions were online purchases that she had reported stolen before delivery, and had already been refunded.
City of London Police presented Bell’s receipts at her trial, which included Timberland boots, dresses, jumpsuits, and a Baker Boy hat.
Bell was found guilty of fraud by false representation after a trial at City of London magistrates court, and was handed a 12-week prison sentence suspended for the next year.
She was also ordered to attend 25 days of rehabilitation, she is under a nighttime curfew for 23 days, and must pay £828 in costs.
“The claims made by Bell were built on a foundation of lies and deceit”, said Detective Sergeant Philip Corcoran, from the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED).
“Not only did Bell attempt to defraud her insurer out of thousands of pounds, but she also deceived a number of popular retailers and even imitated a company.
“Thankfully, AXA noticed the discrepancies in Bell’s story before any compensation was paid, and reported the case to us for investigation.”
Bell’s fraud attempt floundered when she did not have a reference number for the supposed missing luggage or damaged pushchair, and the cruise company confirmed to investigators that no report had been made.
Bell sent to AXA proof of purchase of clothes from two major retailers, totalling £1,300, when the majority of the items had already been refunded.
A further £500 worth of clothes were on a receipt which Bell is believed to have edited, to replace a friend’s name with her own.
Bell used a genuine company’s logo on the bogus repair bill for a pushchair, and made up the name of an employee, police said.
Bell denied fraud by false representation when challenged by police, but was convicted after a trial.
