Man 'faked death to claim pounds 1m'

A BRITISH Airways steward who took out more than pounds 1,000,000 of life insurance and then faked his death in a car crash in Beirut in December 1990, was killed eight months later while driving a car bought with the proceeds paid from one policy, Isleworth Crown Court was told yesterday.

At one stage, Mohammed Wafiq Zarif, a Lebanese, took out three life insurance policies in less than one month - each for pounds 200,000 - with three different companies. Zarif's former wife, Kathleen Denham, 38, claimed the insurance money knowing that her husband was not dead at that time. Ms Denham, of Hanover Avenue, Feltham, west London, denies two charges of conspiracy to defraud six different insurance companies and British Airways, theft of pounds 15,000 from Cornhill Insurance, six charges of attempting to obtain cash by deception from insurance companies and one of attempting to obtain cash by deception from British Airways' pension fund.

The court was told that none of the insurance companies was able to confirm Zarif's 'death' so that only one policy, a travel policy with Cornhill Insurance, was paid out. Zarif used the proceeds to buy the car in which he died in August last year.

The trial continues today.