‘My biological mum turned up after 45 years then swindled me out of £300,000’
Graham Hornigold said he was 'sideswiped by a seasoned pro'.
When Graham Hornigold was reunited with his mother after 45 years apart, he couldn’t wait to make up on lost time.
Born on a British army base in Germany before being raised in St. Albans by his father and stepmother, Graham said they ‘never spoke’ about his mother.
Throughout his childhood Graham – who went on to become a successful pastry chef and has appeared on MasterChef– was also beaten by his alcoholic father. He pursued a career as a chef to have a ‘roof over his head, somewhere warm and access to food’.
So, when in 2020 he got an email out of the blue from his biological mother, he was ecstatic.
Although he initially proceeded with caution and asked her to prove her identity, it was quickly apparent Dionna Marie Hanna was his mother.
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But within a year of meeting, Graham would discover her shocking web of lies that left him hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt and questioning his very identity.
Graham Hornigold was a successful pastry chef in London when his mother – who he hadn’t seen or heard from in 45 years – got in touch (Picture: David Tarling/ Netflix)His story is detailed in the new Netflix documentary Con Mum, which follows his life being upended by a ‘jet-setting, champagne-sipping, hotel-hopping woman claiming to be his mother’.
After receiving that initial email, Graham and his wife Heather travelled from London to Liverpool to meet his mother for the first time.
‘We bonded right away, and I knew this was my mum,’ he recalls in the documentary.
As he got to know Dionne it became apparent she was incredibly wealthy, splashing out on luxurious hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants and designer clothes.
She even brought her son a Land Rover worth £74,000, as well as another car for his wife so she ‘didn’t feel left out’.
Dionne explained her wealth came from owning land, farms and businesses all over the world. But she said the main source of her seemingly never-ending income came from being the illegitimate daughter of the Sultan of Brunei.
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Previous Page Next PageDespite this seeming far-fetched, Graham had no reason to question her – especially when staff at luxury hotels and designer stores knew her well.
However, Dionne also told her son their time together would be limited as she was dying from cancer and only had six months to live.
It was a devastating blow for Graham, who then did everything he could to spend time with and support his terminally ill mother.
As Dionne doted on her son, she quickly turned on her daughter-in-law, who had also just given birth.
Heather recalls Dionne ‘turning cold’ and making snide remarks regularly, which she said impacted her ability to ‘celebrate becoming a mother’.
With Dionne’s health declining she then told Graham she wanted him to be the beneficiary of her wealth, but that they would need to travel to Switzerland to open a bank account in his name.
For months Dionne had been lavishing his son, and even his friends, with gifts, but when she started asking for money and claiming she couldn’t access her accounts, Heather was sceptical.
Alarm bells then started ringing when she discovered Graham had transferred thousands of pounds into his mother’s accounts.
His wife Heather became suspicious of her mother-in-law (Picture: David Tarling/ Netflix)Although he reassured her they would get the cash back, Heather wasn’t convinced.
‘My head started spinning,’ she said.
Although the trip to Switzerland was only meant to be for a few days – with Heather also home alone with their baby son – Dionne kept extending the trip and citing issues with setting up the account. If any comments were made worried about how Heather was coping, Dionne made sure to bring up her impending death.
Again, Graham had no reason to doubt her claims, with the pair being taken into private rooms of major banks after hours.
At the same time Dionne was also giving money to various people she met, offering to be investors for their company. But she would then ask for money or gifts in return, which many felt they couldn’t refuse.
Growing increasingly suspicious of her mother-in-law, Heather was again floored when seeing her husband had transferred his mother around £100,000.
‘I started becoming very afraid of who this woman was. I realised I was on a train heading for a wreck and I needed to save Graham,’ she said.
Deciding to investigate Dionne’s history, Heather discovered that she’d used several different names over decades and had been married three times. Each marriage certificate listed a different name, date of birth and fathers.
Graham was eventually asked to transfer large sums of money to his mum (Picture: David Tarling/ Netflix)She’d also been jailed in the UK in 1984 for fraud.
Starting to question his mother’s claims too, Graham went looking through her hotel room one day and discovered red food colouring. It took him back to a few months earlier when Dionne sent him a photo of a toilet, explaining she had passed blood and was becoming even more unwell.
He then looked at her medication, realising that none of it related to cancer treatment.
Despite taking their concerns to the police about how Dionne could be a fraudster, they were told a wheelchair bound woman in her 80s didn’t fit the profile of a con artist and were largely ignored.
At the same time, some of the people Dionne had invested in did their own digging, with one discovering she was not in fact related to the Brunei royal family. Heather also contacted hotels, who told her Dionne had never paid her bills and would sometimes leave diamonds to pay off her debts. They turned out to be fake.
Needing to confirm if Dionne was actually his mother, Graham then demanded a DNA test, convinced she was a random woman who had targeted him.
He was floored to eventually discover she was an experienced con artist (Picture: David Tarling/ Netflix)To his shock and disappointment, it came back conclusive. Dionna was ‘unequivocally’ his mother.
Soon after she cut him off and disappeared, leaving Graham drowning in debt. He eventually concluded that after she got stuck in the UK during lockdown and could no longer meet and target high net-worth individuals, she discovered her son was incredibly successful too, and set her sights on him.
‘No mum should come into someone’s life and do that,’ he said.
‘I was sideswiped by a seasoned pro who also happens to be my mother.’
Con Mum is now streaming on Netflix.
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