A Fraserburgh woman has gone on trial accused of scamming nearly £85,000 from a friend by pretending she was making a documentary about Hillary Clinton.
Anne Mulloy, 63, denies spinning a web of lies to entice her friend, actress Helena Robinson, to hand over multiple amounts of cash between 2011 and 2017.
Mulloy – who is also known as Anne Leuser – claimed she knew Hillary Clinton and would be getting behind-the-scenes access to her 2016 presidential campaign, Peterhead Sheriff Court was told.
Ms Robinson thought she was loaning her friend cash to pay for a flat in London, living expenses and travel costs for business meetings with commissioning editors at BBC Scotland.
Helena Robinson, 70, whose professional name is Helena Breck and who appeared in EastEnders as the wife of infamous soap bad guy James Wilmott-Brown, gave evidence on the first day of the trial.
She told the court she had known Mulloy since 1989 and that “she had been recommended to me as a friend” and they had kept in touch.
Money loan for central London flat
Fiscal depute Ruaridh McAllister asked Ms Robinson where Mulloy had been living in 2011 and she replied: “In Pennan. She told me she was living with a lady called Brenda.”
Ms Robinson – who also appeared in the North Sea ferry-set soap Triangle in 1981 and lent her voice to Tesco and Sainsbury’s self-service check-outs – told the court that Mulloy had experienced “financial difficulties” over the years and she had “helped her out” before.
The court heard that in February 2012, she sent Mulloy £3,150 for a deposit on a flat in London’s exclusive Pimlico area. It is alleged no such rental existed.
Ms Robinson explained how she began to keep a spreadsheet and emailed it to Mulloy to keep a running total of the loan.
“I made it clear on the bank transfers using the reference ‘temporary loan’ that this was money being loaned,” she said.
“I am not made of money – it was money I needed. I had to borrow money from my father to pay for stuff.”
The court heard she sent Mulloy regular monthly amounts of £987.23 which she believed was for rent on the Pimlico flat.
When asked why she had continued doing so for the next five years, Ms Robinson said she had “trusted her friend”.
“Anne was always full of ideas – and they were good,” she explained. “She would come up with the idea and I would write up the synopsis.
“We both had contacts in the TV industry. She would tell me of people she knew and when I went along to meetings with them, I thought ‘God, you do know this person’.”
The court was told that Mulloy had then shown her friend emails purporting to be from Hillary Clinton and had her business card, claiming to have met her when she was a US senator.
“She had another idea about what it was like growing up in the White House – as she said Hillary had contacts with previous president’s children,” Ms Robinson said. “It would be called Children of the White House.”
An email from Mulloy to Ms Robinson was read out to the court.
“I have had an email from Bill, however, I can’t get it to open,” Mulloy wrote.
Ms Robinson said her friend had claimed to be in a court battle with Aberdeenshire Council because they had stopped her benefit payments.
“I was horrified,” Ms Robinson said: “She had phoned me and said, ‘They paid for JK Rowling when she was writing, why won’t they pay me?’.”
She said Mulloy had also asked for money to pay back loans she had taken out and she had urged her to “sort herself out” and sent her more money to pay them off.
“It was all very distressing,” Ms Robinson explained.
In May 2012, Mulloy asked for money to pay for a removal firm to take her belongings from Pennan to London and Ms Robinson sent £945.
“It didn’t happen though, as she was supposedly taken ill,” Ms Robinson said.
The rent payments and requests for cash continued, the jury heard.
In 2014 Ms Robinson was told by Mulloy that she had “won” the court battle with Aberdeenshire Council, but the damages she claimed to have been awarded were “being withheld”.
“She said they had a gagging order on the case, that is what she claimed,” Ms Robinson said.
In sometimes tearful evidence, Ms Robinson told the court that Mulloy carried on phoning and asking for money and she felt she was in a “Catch-22” situation.
“I was in too deep – I had to keep going as I still believed we would be going into business together,” she said.
The court heard that Mulloy received 113 payments from her friend which amounted to £85,710.02.
“I never got a penny back,” said Ms Robinson.
Anne Mulloy denies charges
Mulloy is charged with taking a loan that she had no intention of repaying while claiming it was funding the film, computer repairs, trips to Glasgow and the rent on a London property.
The charge also states that Mulloy told Ms Robinson she intended to set up a business with her and that she needed the cash to travel to Aberdeen for various legal court cases that never took place.
And it’s further alleged the 63-year old was in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance while also telling the woman she had no income.
The Crown Office will also seek to prove that Mulloy – whose address was given as Topping Gardens, Fraserburgh – obtained the money by fraudulent means and made false representation by claiming that she had signed a contract with a production company.
The trial, before Sheriff Craig Findlater, continues.