A fraudster tried to scam more than £75,000 for missed flights to New York, Dubai, Barbados and Las Vegas that he never actually booked and even used a forged police letter. Joshua Moorcroft, 27, made 15 bogus claims with six different insurance companies for missed or cancelled travel.
The 27-year-old even used a family member's company to pretend his girlfriend was made redundant in order to claim for a missed flight to Barbados - but she never even worked at the firm. He also forged an email from a police officer in a bid to back-up his claim he was in a car crash on the way to Manchester airport, so had missed a fight to Qatar.
Moorcroft claimed he was unable to catch many of the flights using a range of excuses, including a taxi car tyre exploding, being forced to have surgery and cancellations due to the Covid pandemic travel restrictions. In October 2019, Moorcroft took out a multi-trip worldwide travel insurance policy in and submitted a claim for a missed flight from Manchester to New York just nine days later.
He told his insurer his taxi broke down on the way to the airport due to an exploded tyre. Around two months later, Moorcroft made another claim for a missed flight, this time from Manchester to Qatar, stating he was involved in a car crash on the way to the airport.
To back-up his claim, Moorcroft handed over a screenshot of an email that was supposedly from one of the police officers who attended the scene. Three claims were then submitted in February 2020 over missed trips while Moorcroft was having surgery on a fractured hand.
He claimed he had been forced to cancel two upcoming trips to Dubai and Las Vegas, as he was not able to travel until the pins from his surgery had been removed. Moorcroft gave a string of documents to his insurers in a bid to support this, including documents from the travel company and his local hospital.
But when investigators asked the travel company about the booking to Dubai, the company confirmed they had no record of this booking. Moorcroft was challenged by the insurer, Aviva, but could not provide an explanation, police said.
Further checks found Moorcroft requested quotes for these holidays in 2018, but did not complete the bookings. As a result, the insurer looked into the earlier claims for missed flights and the police force, which supposedly attended the scene of the accident, confirmed the email from one of their officers was fake.
With evidence indicating these claims were a scam, Aviva then referred the case to police for further investigation. Moorcroft was arrested at his partner’s home in Liverpool in October 2020, where officers seized multiple pieces of evidence, including a phone and laptop.
When questioned by cops, Moorcroft admitted full responsibility for the five claims. He was asked if he wished to disclose any further offences, but said that there were no other fraudulent claims.
But when the seized devices were examined officers uncovered a further 10 claims with Aviva and five other insurance companies. These related to multiple trips to Dubai, Barbados, Los Angeles, Rhodes, Tenerife and Turkey, which were cancelled for a number of reasons such as the COVID-19 pandemic, redundancy and injury.
Unlike the previous claims that were all in Moorcroft’s name, the fraudster used the names of people he knew to take out policies and submit bogus claims. These included his partner, her parents and former work colleagues.
One of these claims was made in his partner’s name for a trip to Barbados, which was cancelled due to her supposedly being made redundant. A signed letter was provided by her employer to support the claim, who was then contacted to check its authenticity.
But the company director revealed he never employed anyone with this name. He added Moorcroft was his cousin so he recognised his girlfriend's name.
At Liverpool Crown Court on Monday, Moorcroft, of Liverpool, was jailed for 16 months. He had admitted 15 counts of fraud by false representation at an earlier hearing.
Speaking after the case Detective Constable Justin Hawes, from the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED), said: "Although Moorcroft immediately admitted to the first five offences when interviewed by IFED, he wasted police time by denying that he had submitted any other claims. A review of his devices found that this was certainly not the case, and that he had in fact orchestrated a further 10 bogus claims.
"Moorcroft has shown very little regard in terms of who he has implicated whilst committing these crimes, including his family, former colleagues, partner, and even her family. I don’t doubt that he has put all of these innocent parties through a lot of stress by doing so. Hopefully this result will force him to reflect on his actions and the impact they have had on those around him."
Carl Mather, manager at Aviva's special investigations unit, said after Moorcroft’s sentencing that his crimes were branded “serious and cynical” in court. He added: "Aviva welcomes the sentencing of Joshua Moorcroft, which underscores the serious nature of insurance fraud. Mr Moorcroft’s greed has now left him with a criminal record, a tarnished reputation and an uncertain future."
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea
