A 42-year-old mother identified as Nicole Elkabbass was reported to have lavished over £45,000 of her GoFundMe funds on holidays and gambling, after faking cancer diagnosis.
According to the report by Metro, Nicole Elkabbass is being accused of faking a cancer diagnosis and using £45,000 raised for her treatment to fund holidays and her gambling addiction.
The report by Metro added that Nicole Elkabbass, claimed her friend Dr Nick Morris told her she had ovarian cancer after running a series of tests at his London office in 2017, Canterbury Crown Court heard.
She then set up a GoFundMe page with her mum to raise money for cancer drugs unavailable in the United Kingdom, for her cancer diagnosis the jury was told.
They claim she then used the money raised from the page to gamble, as well as spending nearly £4,000 on tickets to Tottenham Hotspur, £320 in TK Maxx and buying flights and hotels for trips to Barcelona and Rome, the report added.
Elkabbass, a former Harrods fashion consultant, has denied two counts of fraud relating to the money she received between February and August, 2018.
She told the court she ‘truly believed’ she was in the late stages of the disease, and said her trips abroad had been for medical treatment. The jury heard that from 2017 to 2018, she had gambled about £68,000, through online bingo, William Hill bookmakers and the Grosvenor Casino in Broadstairs, Kent.
Elkabbass claimed Dr Morris, a leading gynaecologist, had run a series of tests on her that revealed she had cancer in 2017. He told the court he had never treated her and instead she had told him she had cancer. Jurors heard that she had then set up the donations page after coming across a drug in Spain at Barcelona’s Centro Medico Teknon Hospital which would help her alleged condition.
She said this would cost £40,000. Elkabbass stated that she was unable to pay for the treatment due to her ‘horrendous’ gambling addiction, which she told the court she had since managed to beat. Prosecutors allege there is no evidence she was at the Spanish hospital. The defendant said the Premier League tickets she bought were for a friend who lent her the money previously, the Metro report added.