A 31-year-old man has been jailed for pretending to be the son of a man who died in the Grenfell Tower fire. He did this to get his hands on emergency cash meant for survivors. Mohammad Gamoota, the fraudster who gave the name of a genuine victim of the fire as his father was convicted at Isleworth Crown Court for 18 months for two counts of fraud which had aimed to net him a total of £6,784.36.
Last year, two days after the fire killed 72 people, Gamoota claimed he had been living with his father on the 24th floor of Grenfell Tower.
Gamoota, of Leafy Way, Croydon, was given a room at the Holiday Inn from 16 June and spent eight days a cost of £910 and he also enjoyed £374.35 in room service.
The flat in the tower that he claimed to be living in never existed, but the fraudster claimed that his father "Abdel Salam" died in the fire. The genuine victim, who died in the blaze, had two sons and was named Abdeslam Sebbar.
The court heard that Gamoota had no connection with Mr Sebbar and his own father actually lives abroad. Judge Robin Johnson told him, "In the wake of a national disaster you decided to enrich yourself while you masqueraded as a true victim. This was not a moment of madness. You spent days in accommodation that was set aside for those who were grief-stricken, homeless and no doubt in a state of shock and bewilderment”. He added, “That did not stop you tapping into the funds that had rightly been made available for those people”.
