A romance fraudster has been jailed for conning lonely men out of £8,000 after meeting them on Facebook – including one who gave her his last £1.07.
Leonnie Robson, 35, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, targeted nine victims in just 14 months, between March 2024 and May last year.
She extorted a total of £8,176 from the men, with one giving £3,000, another made to empty his account and a third asked for money just 14 minutes after meeting.
The mother-of-six lied to her victims to persuade them to loan her the cash, including by saying she had cancer and that her daughter had died by suicide.
Once it was in her account, she would block them when they began to ask questions, a court heard – and none of the money has since been recovered.
The scammer was on licence at the time after serving a second prison term for fraud – and has 33 previous convictions for 87 offences, including 31 earlier frauds.
She was discovered when one of the men’s carers reported concerns he was sending money to someone he met online – which led police to find the other victims.
Robson, of Dickens Road, admitted five frauds and asked for two others committed last summer to be taken into consideration.
Leonnie Robson (pictured), 35, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, targeted nine victims in just 14 months, between March 2024 and May last year
The mother-of-six (pictured) lied to her victims to persuade them to loan her the cash, including by saying she had cancer and that her daughter had died by suicide
She appeared at Norwich Crown Court where she has now been jailed for two years and nine weeks – and wept in the dock as she learnt her fate.
Prosecutor Simon Gladwell said she told a range of ‘lies’ to dupe the men into gifting her cash.
These included saying she was fleeing domestic violence, undergoing chemotherapy, and needed to buy birthday gifts for her children.
She also claimed she needed cash for food, fuel and utility bills after falsely stating that she had been a victim of fraud herself.
Robson met her victims on a Facebook dating site before moving conversations to WhatsApp, where she would start asking for money.
She initially started asking for small sums of between £10 and £20 before demanding more, then making excuses why she could not repay.
Addressing the conwoman, Judge Alice Robinson said she targeted victims before ‘spinning them lies about your personal life’.
She did so, the judge said, ‘to gain their sympathy and trust to persuade them to part with money’.
Judge Robinson added she was sure her offending, which had taken ‘significant planning’, had a serious detrimental impact on the victims.
She pointed particularly to one who was pursued ‘mercilessly for everything he had’ until he paid over his last £1.07, which was ‘all he had in his account’.
The judge said: ‘It’s quite clear this is extremely serious offending.’
One man said in a victim impact statement: ‘I thought I’d finally found love and now to realise it was all a lie is so hard to process.
‘I want to find someone to share my life with, but I just can’t open myself up to the pain of this happening again.’
Another said: ‘Losing this money sucks, but the thing that hurts the most is the confirmation I’m not wanted unless I can be taken advantage of.
‘How am I meant to believe and trust people now in the future?’
A third man said he had been left embarrassed and had become a ‘recluse’ since falling victim to Robson.
Robson (pictured) appeared at Norwich Crown Court where she has now been jailed for two years and nine weeks – and wept in the dock as she learnt her fate
He added in a statement: ‘After becoming a victim of fraud, I removed myself from online dating.
‘This is really hard for someone of my age who is battling with feeling alone. I want to meet someone and have that companionship, but I’m now so scared of being hurt.
‘My confidence has been knocked and where I was willing to meet someone new, I feel that perhaps being alone is a better option.’
Defence barrister Martin Ivory said his client ‘regrets what she set about doing’ and that her guilty pleas were her best mitigation.
He said Robson, who was formerly addicted to heroin and cocaine, had accepted being ‘mean’, but denied targeting people because they were vulnerable.
Mr Ivory added she had ‘accepted responsibility’ for her actions, which were motivated by ‘strained finances’.
PC Sally Anderson, who led the investigation for Norfolk Police, said after the hearing: ‘Robson repeatedly identified ways she could emotionally control and manipulate her victims, and all while she was already on licence for defrauding people.
‘Thankfully, because of the courage and bravery of her victims and the strength of their testimonies, Robson was left with no option other than to admit her guilt.
‘Romance fraud is a particularly callous offence because not only do fraudsters inflict financial loss on their victims, they also cause an enormous amount of emotional hurt and pain.
‘We want to encourage all those who think they’ve been a victim of romance fraud to not feel embarrassed or ashamed but rather report it.
‘If you believe that you have been targeted by a romance fraudster, or you believe somebody close to you has been targeted, then please contact Action Fraud so you can begin to get the necessary support and prevent other people from becoming victims.
‘We’d always advise to never send money, share bank details, or invest in crypto based on advice from someone you have only met online, regardless of how convincing their story is.’
