British mum-of-three accused of £10m Spanish food poisoning scam may avoid trial
Spanish prosecutors have made a shock U-turn over charges against a glamorous British mum-of-three accused of a massive food poisoning scam.
Laura Holmes Cameron was last night given a chink of hope of beating fraud and criminal gang membership raps at a trial set to take place later this year after it emerged her accusers do not include public prosecutors. Their bombshell decision not to press charges was laid bare in a court document made public this week ordering the Essex-born blonde and seven other British suspects to trial.
Holmes Cameron, 45, could still be jailed for nearly a decade if convicted because lawyers acting for Majorcan hotels have made sure she will be put in the dock by pursuing their separate legal actions. But public prosecutors have decided it has not been possible to determine who the authors of the fraud were or pinpoint the transfer of assets from the alleged food poisoning scam.
And they have told officials they feel the right outcome for all eight Brits including Holmes Cameron is an acquittal after concluding documents and other information seized by police "do not implicate the people accused in any illicit practices." Their decision has been described as ‘provisional’, leaving the door open for an eleventh-hour change of heart when the trial gets underway.
A lawyer prosecuting on behalf of the Majorca Hoteliers Federation, one of the three hotel groups still pursuing legal action, insisted today it wasn’t rare for a judge to convict suspects even when there was no state accusation. Jaime Campaner said: “The public prosecution decision does not condition the courts. There are many examples of convictions where state prosecutors say they are not pressing charges. It’s their provisional stance at the moment so it can be reconsidered at trial.”
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She could face a decade in jail if convicted (SOLARPIX.COM)
The Essex born woman is one of several Brits accused of fraud (SOLARPIX.COM)The Majorca Hoteliers Federation outlined their position late last year after being invited by an investigating judge to submit an indictment. They demanded a six-and-a-half year prison sentence for Holmes Cameron. They said they wanted her jailed for five years if she was found guilty of a charge of aggravated fraud and another year and six months if she was convicted of belonging to a criminal gang.
It left Laura, who now describes herself as a “residual money mentor” online where she says she “coaches women to win," facing the highest prison sentence demand of all eight Brits from the hotel federation on the holiday island where she used to be based full-time.
The hoteliers’ representative called for her brother Marc Cameron Grinstead to be jailed for five years - four for aggravated fraud and 12 months for membership of a criminal gang - in their seven-page pre-trial indictment lodged with Palma’s Court of Investigation Number Two.
It demanded the same sentence on the same charges for another British national named as Ryan Bridge which it described as the UK-based businessman who processed fake food poisoning claims “conscious the intoxications didn’t exist.”
Laura now describes herself as a “residual money mentor” and says she “coaches women to win" (SOLARPIX.COM)And it said five other Brits, named as Simon Robert Flanagan; Tegan Jewel Sumerlee; Susan Amanda Lyle; Nicola Marie Sanderson; and Peter Carl Murphy, should receive a prison term totalling three years and nine months if convicted of both charges.
Separate prosecutors acting for two other hotel and holiday accommodation groups who say they lost money because of the fake food poisoning scam subsequently demanded higher prison sentences for the eight accused.
Hoteles Mac confirmed in an indictment lodged by its lawyers it was seeking an eight-year prison sentence for Holmes Cameron and her brother, and five and a half years for most of the other suspects. Amla Explotaciones Turísticas demanded eight-year jail sentences for all eight Brits.
The eight Brits are also facing the prospect of heavy fines and six-figure compensation demands if they are convicted as charged. They have been ordered to deposit just over EUROS one million (POUNDS 850,000) with the courts ahead of trial or risk having assets frozen.
Detectives were said at the time of their September 2017 arrests to have estimated the losses of the hotel groups whose fraud claims sparked a police crackdown dubbed Operation Claims at around £9.5 million. The two alleged ringleaders, former Magaluf bar owner Laura and her brother, were accused of hiring accomplices paid on commission to get British tourists to put in false food poisoning claims, and getting a UK-based businessman to process them.
A hard-hitting six-page ruling issued early last year by the Majorcan court leading the long-running investigation accused the siblings of forming a “profit-motivated organised gang” with the other suspects through a Spanish company they set up called Elite Project Marketing SL. It added: “The gang specialised in obtaining the details of British tourists in all-inclusive hotels in Majorca it convinced, through a form they themselves elaborated, to falsely claim they had been ill during their stay in one of those hotels and be able to claim compensation in the UK.”
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The ruling went on to say the amount of compensation obtained in the UK with the consequent damage it caused tour operators and hotels between 2014 and 2017 “significantly exceeded” £176,000. Investigating judge Maria Perez Ruiz admitted at the time the final figure defrauded had yet to be determined. The same judge has now confirmed the case must go to trial, although its start date has not yet been set.
Holmes Cameron is being prosecuted under her maiden name and not her married name of Laura Joyce. Laura’s lawyer Gabriel Llado said after his client appeared in court in May 2018 in a closed hearing that she had admitted to passing on the names and phone numbers of holidaymakers for payment but insisted it was part of a pure market research exercise. He insisted neither Laura or any of the so-called “claims farmers” she used to gather data of tourists she passed on to others in the UK, encouraged them to get chemist’s receipts so they could make fake food poisoning claims as police and hoteliers’ representatives have claimed.
And he claimed Laura had spent just a few months doing it and stopped because she was earning very little.
No further action was ever taken against Laura’s wealthy mum Debbie. She was also held at the luxury villa in upmarket Bendinat the pair then shared near the glamorous Majorcan port of Puerto Portals which police raided, but was freed before she went to court.
After Laura was arrested, it emerged her Magaluf bar Playhouse had been identified as the venue where a British tourist was filmed performing sex acts on 24 men for a cheap drink in the summer of 2014. The fallout from the infamous video sparked a crackdown on bar crawls in the party resort after regional governors described the “outrageous” sex scenes as giving the area and women “a terrible image” and promised to “stop it whichever way” they could. Laura, who was not at her bar when the incident occurred, shut Playhouse down soon after.
The British government announced new measures to clamp down on fake holiday sickness claims as a result of scandals like the Majorca fake food poisoning scam. The same year of the Majorca arrests, Benidorm hotel association HOSBEC estimated British guests’ were costing Spanish hotels around POUNDS 55 million in bogus food poisoning claims. Some reports at the time even claimed Brits were facing a holiday ban in some all-inclusive Costa hotels. Many fraudsters were caught out after private detectives hired by hotels affected trawled their social media and discovered they had been posting photos of themselves eating and drinking when they later claimed to insurers they had been in bed with diarrhoea.
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