Cyber criminals steal from Addenbrooke’s brain injury patient - and order pizza delivery for Guernsey
A man recovering in Addenbrooke’s from a severe brain injury has fallen victim to cybercrime, while unable to walk or speak.
Robert Hanley, 30, has been in hospital for eight weeks – including two weeks in a coma –after fainting and hitting his head while out shopping with his girlfriend and three-year-old daughter.
He suffered a bleed on the brain which required two surgeries and his family has been told they do not know if he will ever fully recover.
But while he has been desperately ill on a ward in Cambridge, thieves have been ordering takeaway meals using his bank card details –including getting a pizza delivered in Guernsey.
Robert’s partner Erika Wing, 23, said: “I woke up on Monday morning to find that Robert’s phone had received a message from his bank saying someone had tried to use his card details to spend £26 on a takeaway website.
“I was really shocked because he’s been in hospital for eight weeks with a brain injury and his mum has his card safely at home so obviously he couldn’t have made this purchase.
“So I then went to his online banking and discovered someone had used his card two other times – once for an £18 delivery from Domino in Milton Keynes and once for a Just Eat takeaway in Guernsey.
“I couldn’t believe that after the awful time he’s had in the last two months, now someone was stealing from him when he was so vulnerable and sick in hospital. I can’t tell him about it because he won’t understand.”
Robert fell ill on August 25 when he was out shopping with Erika and his daughter Ophelia. They had just gone into a pub to buy some lunch when the 30-year-old chef suddenly went blind.
Erika says: “It came from nowhere. We had been walking around the streets and he was perfectly fine – his cheeky, sarcastic, normal self - just winding me up and joking with his daughter. It was an average day. We got to a pub and as we walked in he grabbed my T-shirt and said: 'I have lost my vision'.
“We had not eaten for a bit and it was warm so I told him to sit down and went to get him a glass of water but before I made it to the bar I heard this massive thud and my stepdaughter shouting my name. I turned around and he had fallen head first onto the hard wooden floor and started having a seizure.”
Staff helped look after Ophelia while Erika called for an ambulance and, after initially being sent to Peterborough Hospital, Robert was transferred to Addenbrooke’s.
Robert’s mum, Claire Barr, 48, said; “We found out he’d suffered a small bleed on the brain which is what caused him to faint and they thought that was due to a clotting disorder that he’s had all his life. Then the fall caused him a major brain injury.
“He ended up in critical care there, having to have half his skull off, basically, with a craniectomy. They didn't expect him to survive so he has been through hell. He spent his 30th birthday in hospital and spent two weeks in critical care, then a week in high dependency, then he went on the neuro ward and he is now in their rehabilitation ward. The hospital has been fantastic.
“He has regained some speech and can eat with a knife and fork instead of a spoon but he’s not walking yet. So it’s been a lot of worry for everyone.
"Then we hear someone has been stealing from him and using his bank card to order takeaways. I felt sick when Erika told me one was for a delivery in Guernsey!
“Obviously he hasn’t made these purchases. He has serious brain damage. I have his card and I live in Coventry. It's not like he can use it at the hospital. He has been in a coma and is still in a very confused state. We don't know if he will ever come out of that properly.
“When I heard I said that's fraud! You can't just take someone's card details and spend it . That's no different to someone coming into your house and taking money.”
Erika went to the Cambridgeshire police website to report the thefts and was put through to the Action Fraud website, where she entered details about the actions reported on his bank account.
But the family were distressed when they were told by Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, that the details they reported did not appear to constitute a crime.
The automated service scans reports made by victims on their online form and decides what action to take. Erika’s report was marked down as ‘for information’ rather than to be passed onto a police force for investigation.
An Action Fraud spokesperson said: “It has been recorded on the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau’s (NFIB) system as an information report due to the fact the report said a pending transaction had been refused by the victim’s bank. The report, in its current form, will still be used by the NFIB for intelligence purposes.
“In time, further reports that link to this one might come into Action Fraud and viable lines of inquiry may then be established. If this happens, all of the reports will be sent as a ‘case’ to a police force, or other partner agency, for investigation. If a victim makes a report online, they are able to edit this report and add new information at any time.”
The spokesperson added that when victims of bank card fraud had been reimbursed by their banks, Action Fraud no longer considered them to be the victims of crime and the victim automatically became the bank. It was then down to the bank to decide whether they wanted to pursue charges.
However, Robert, from March, has not been reimbursed for the thefts because his bank, Halifax, requires voice recognition to access his online banking and he cannot speak clearly yet.
Erika added: “We were about to start a new life. We had jobs sorted and a house sorted but just a few days before he ended up in hospital. And now we don’t know who has his bank details and the money we were saving together for a mortgage is in the account.”
Erika had expected a phone call to follow up her report but instead received an automated message from Action Fraud saying: “Whilst the misuse of your identity cannot be identified as a police recorded crime we do recognise that identity theft can cause significant distress and inconvenience… Whilst we have not recorded this matter as a crime, we will still make use of the information you have provided.”
She said: “Dealing with the police was really frustrating. How can you not class this fraud as a crime? It’s a small amount of money but clearly he hasn't been in Guernsey. He was in hospital with a brain injury.
"We have managed to cancel his bank card but there doesn't seem to be anyone willing to look into it. What if it had been thousands of pounds? The fact no one has bothered to pick up the phone to find out more details has been really disappointing."
Since the card was used to order takeaways, the takeaway companies would have addresses for police to follow up.
“Some actual contact from the police, rather than just emails, would be nice. Some sort of verbal contact so we can explain to them what we have gone through, would be good. You can’t easily express what happened online. It's really stressful that no one has even bothered to ring me. All I have had is the email saying they wont do anything about it.
“It seems police don't want to do anything when someone has committed a crime. I feel Robert is a spare part who has been pushed to one side and he is not capable of speaking for himself.
“Because of the confused state he is in, Robert does not know what is going on, but we have told the police he is in a vulnerable state and is in hospital and there still has been no phone call to see what they can do to try and help. I feel he has just been dismissed. Would they even do anything if you lost £1,000?”
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