Conwoman who took charity cash is jailed (From Harwich and Manningtree Standard)

Conwoman who took charity cash is jailed

2:00pm Friday 3rd July 2009

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A WOMAN has been jailed for conning money from donors who thought they were helping to send a young cancer sufferer to America.

District Judge David Cooper said he was “heavy-hearted” after hearing Gina Grimes had turned her life around and single-handedly tackled her drug problem since the offences in January.

But Mr Cooper, sitting at Colchester Magistrates’ Court yesterday, said the public would lose its faith in the justice system if he did not jail the 25-year-old.

Addressing Mr Cooper directly, Grimes said: “I just want to say that I’m ever so sorry for what I have admitted doing. If I was in court in front of me for what I did in January then I would put me away as well.

“But I have worked so hard to turn my life around. I’m terrified of going to jail.”

The court heard she had been given a suspended sentence for a similar offence 11 days before admitting four charges of making false representations to get money in Alresford.

Mr Cooper said: “What would the outside world think of the justice system if I did not jail you today, when you stood before me 11 days before these offences and I told you if you did this again I would send you to jail?”

Grimes, of Ipswich Road, Colchester, went door-to-door in the village selling raffle tickets she claimed were in aid of three-year-old George Horrocks.

But she was not intending to give the cash to George’s family.

Russell Haldane, mitigating, said Grimes’ life now bore no resemblance to the one she was living when the offences were committed.

The court heard when interviewed, Grimes couldn’t believe she could have committed the offence.

Mr Haldane said she had turned her life around, was clean from drugs for the first time in ten years and had been offered a place on an Open University course to study history.

Jailing her for a total of 12 weeks for the offences, Mr Cooper said: “You have undermined the public’s faith in door-to-door charities which are genuine.

“I saw the mother of that child say it was ‘disgusting’ and it certainly was.”

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