Death scam ex-cop jailed

A FORMER Policewoman who this week admitted in the Swakopmund Magistrate’s Court that she faked the deaths of her parents by fire in 2001 so that she could get her hands on life-insurance payouts totalling N$20 000 was sent to prison for two and a half years yesterday.

With the sentencing of former Police Constable Kicka Hickman (36) by Magistrate Johanna Prinsloo, a case that had been pending against the ex-Policewoman since 2003 has finally come to a conclusion. Hickman’s case dragged on from 2003 until her bail was withdrawn a month ago because she had failed to appear in court as required.The case entered its home stretch on Wednesday this week, when Hickman, a mother of four who left the Police in 2003, pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud and a count of having false information inserted into a death register at the Ministry of Home Affairs.Hickman admitted that on August 23 2001, when she was still a Policewoman at Swakopmund, she committed fraud by informing a Home Affairs official that both her parents had died in a fire.She did this with the aid of a forged affidavit that she had drawn up in someone else’s name.As a result of this affidavit, death certificates for her parents were issued to Hickman.She then used these documents to submit a claim to an insurance company, Old Mutual, in order to receive insurance payouts on her parents’ lives.The company paid out N$20 000 to Hickman before it was discovered that the parents’ deaths had actually been staged, and that they were not yet dead.Magistrate Prinsloo sentenced Hickman to two years’ imprisonment on each of the fraud charges, as well as a concurrent term of three months in jail on the last charge.Nine months of each of the fraud sentences were suspended for five years on condition that Hickman is not convicted again of fraud, theft or an attempt to commit fraud or theft that had been committed during the period of suspension.Public Prosecutor Brumilda Britz conducted the prosecution against Hickman, who stood trial without legal representation.Hickman’s case dragged on from 2003 until her bail was withdrawn a month ago because she had failed to appear in court as required.The case entered its home stretch on Wednesday this week, when Hickman, a mother of four who left the Police in 2003, pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud and a count of having false information inserted into a death register at the Ministry of Home Affairs.Hickman admitted that on August 23 2001, when she was still a Policewoman at Swakopmund, she committed fraud by informing a Home Affairs official that both her parents had died in a fire.She did this with the aid of a forged affidavit that she had drawn up in someone else’s name.As a result of this affidavit, death certificates for her parents were issued to Hickman.She then used these documents to submit a claim to an insurance company, Old Mutual, in order to receive insurance payouts on her parents’ lives.The company paid out N$20 000 to Hickman before it was discovered that the parents’ deaths had actually been staged, and that they were not yet dead.Magistrate Prinsloo sentenced Hickman to two years’ imprisonment on each of the fraud charges, as well as a concurrent term of three months in jail on the last charge.Nine months of each of the fraud sentences were suspended for five years on condition that Hickman is not convicted again of fraud, theft or an attempt to commit fraud or theft that had been committed during the period of suspension.Public Prosecutor Brumilda Britz conducted the prosecution against Hickman, who stood trial without legal representation.