Margaret Hood
Cancer-con woman Margaret Hood could be forced to pay a heavy penalty as housing chiefs consider driving her out of the fold where she lives.
Bosses at the west Belfast fold which she managed to worm her way into are investigating kicking her out because she asked residents to break the law by taking penalty points for her.
Meanwhile one of her previous victims has urged the fold to get her out because she poses a serious threat to their health.
Ciaran Toman gave Hood thousands of pounds and allowed her to move into their family home, but she got her marching orders there when they suspected she had been secretly medicating their father Frankie who was dying of cancer.
Last week we revealed how the convicted serial fraudster who fakes cancer to con people out of cash had incredibly been given a home in a fold.
Unsuspecting residents – many of them either elderly or vulnerable – are now in fear of having the twisted con artist living in their midst. And just like the Tomans, they want her out.
And it has emerged she has once again been falsely claiming she has cancer and has allegedly conned at least one person out of hundreds of pounds.
Executives at the Fold Group housing association, who run the Forthriver Fold, had been aware before of our story about Hood’s past, but had told residents there was nothing they could do as she hadn’t breached any laws.
But they are now investigating claims residents made to the Sunday World that Hood asked them to take penalty points she had been handed for speeding.
“The people who run the fold have been asking the residents about the penalty points,” said a source.
“It looks like they think they might be able to get her out on the basis she was asking people to break the law.”
Last night the Sunday World asked Fold Group for a comment but they said: “Fold cannot comment on individual cases”.
Meanwhile a previous victim of Margaret Hood has said she needs to be kicked out of the fold immediately because she poses a danger to the residents’ health.
Ciaran Toman says he and his brother Conor were horrified when they read last week’s Sunday World.
He says it’s not just the money that’s a concern - and he should know. After all, Hood had also wormed her way into the Toman’s family home – while their father Frankie was on his death bed – with false claims that she was dying of cancer too.
Ciaran says he’s seriously concerned about the people living in Forthriver Fold and says his brother Conor has with residents.
Medicating
In another shock development, Ciaran Toman also claims: “Margaret Hood was trying to speed up the death of our father by medicating him when we were not looking.”
He added: “We don’t know why she was doing it but it’s almost certain she hoped to gain a pay-out from his life insurance because at that stage we all believed that she was terminally ill as well and we genuinely felt sorry for her.
“She’s dangerous – and if there are people in that fold who are vulnerable and who have money then she will target them.
“It was in my father’s medical notes on more than one occasion that she was allegedly giving him something when we weren’t looking. One time a nurse had written that she couldn’t administer pain killers to Frankie because a family friend had already done so.
“My father made a deathbed statement to the police about her medicating him but by the time the cops took the case seriously he had passed away.”
Margaret ‘Beth’ Hood first hit the headlines when the Sunday World revealed the heart-breaking story of how she conned the Tomans out of thousands of pounds.
“We took her in because she had nowhere else to go,” said Ciaran Toman. “When she was living with us he went downhill quickly but when we kicked her out he made a big recovery and lived for another four months.
After a prolonged legal fight Hood pleaded guilty, but only got a suspended sentence.