Guilty police officer 'set to lose her job'

THE career of Coventry policewoman Helen Helliwell has been left in tatters after she made a bogus  insurance claim

She now faces a disciplinary panel which will almost certainly decide to sack her after a jury found her guilty of obtaining a money transfer by deception.

Warwick Crown Court heard how PC Helliwell, who is based at Stoney Stanton Road station, made the bogus claim in October 2005.

 

She said she had been burgled and £6,281 worth of property - including a laptop computer, jewellery and digital camera - had been stolen.

But when later questioned about it, the 44-year-old, of South Green Drive, Stratford, suddenly "remembered" she did not own a laptop.

The disgraced officer had denied attempting to obtain a money transfer by deception from Heath Lambert insurance.

But the jury took just half an hour to find her guilty.

Judge Marten Coates said the verdict had been "inevitable", and Adrian Keeling, defending, said: "The other thing which is absolutely inevitable is that she will lose her job as a police officer."

Helliwell, who is now married but was formerly Helen Gilbert, was sentenced to nine months imprisonment suspended for 18 months and ordered to do 120 hours' unpaid work.

She was also ordered to pay the £2,132 prosecution costs and all of her own defence costs.

Prosecutor Michael Burrows said Helliwell made an insurance claim in which she claimed her home at the time in Trevelyan Crescent, Stratford, had been burgled.

When she reported the "break-in" 24 hours after she claimed to have discovered it, she said there was no point sending a scenes-of-crime officer because the window cleaner had visited, so there was no evidence to be found.

Helliwell also told Stratford officers there was no need for them to make house-to-house inquiries because she had spoken to all her neighbours and none of them had seen anything suspicious.

But the insurance company became suspicious because of inconsistencies in her claim, so reported the matter to the police.

Helliwell was questioned in May last year, and the following month wrote to the insurers to change her claim, saying she had "remembered" she did not have a laptop.

She claimed she had borrowed one from a neighbour but had returned it some time before, saying that she was under severe mental stress.

When she was arrested in July last year the police found the camera and all the allegedly stolen jewellery at her new home in South Green Drive.

But she maintained she had not tried to deceive anyone, and had simply been "completely befuddled".

Judge Coates said: "You have wasted a lot of public money and a lot of public time.

"The evidence was overwhelming - it was deliberate, persistent and continuous dishonesty."

Jun 13 2007 By Kerry Beadling, Coventry Evening Telegraph