A woman who scammed a couple out of more than £230,000 has been jailed for four and a half years.

The Oxfordshire fraudster, Haydee Daniel, 55, of Valley Road in Henley, was found guilty on Thursday, October 26 at Wood Green Crown Court.

She had offered an Islington couple fraudulent financial investment returns between January and May 2018.

It was concluded at the four-week trial that Daniel had taken advantage of the vulnerable victims and used the money to fund a lavish and extravagant lifestyle.

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PC Evan Mcloughlin, from the Met's Economic Crime Unit, said: "The impact of this crime on the victims is absolutely shocking.

"Daniel masterminded a sophisticated and convincing investment fraud to take advantage of vulnerable victims on a large scale."

PC Mcloughlin added that Daniel had felt no remorse for what she put the victims through and had tried for more than three years to postpone her trial by faking numerous medical conditions at great expense to the NHS.

Detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime’s Economic Crime Team began investigating the scam in 2019.

The court heard how Daniel befriended a couple with a young, ill child and showed them that she lived a lavish lifestyle.

Daniel told the victims that she could get them cheap properties from Barclays bank through a fictitious contact she made up.

Acting as the fake contact, Daniel convinced the Islington couple that their credit ratings were too low to purchase the properties and that she would have to act as their guarantor.

She then told the victims that they would have to prove they had enough money to pay off the mortgage during periods when they were not earning, the court heard.

The fake contact told the couple that they should send money to a bank account set up by Daniel.

The couple, convinced that the money would be ringfenced, were subsequently convinced to make several payments into the account which came to a total of £230,496.

This left the victims destitute and heavily indebted to their family, the court heard.

The couple said in their impact statement that the loss of over £230,000 was not a mere number as it represented the theft of their security, aspirations for the future, and their child's well-being.

Daniel had also lied to the victims as part of the elaborate plan by telling them she had cervical cancer and only 18 months to live, and that she wanted to help them make a better life for themselves before she died.

Officers, who confirmed the fictitious contact as Daniel due to the phone's location showing it was always used in the vicinity of her home address, were able to recover more than 1,000 pages of WhatsApp messages between the fraudster and her victims.