A MOTHER has spoken of the horror of her two-year-old daughter being used by a friend in a charity scam which claimed a child had died from leukaemia.

Katie Wolff, 20, claimed best friend Anna Pickett’s child Lilie Mae was her own and had died from the illness.

Wolff, who was working at the George and Dragon pub in Downe High Street, lied to staff and customers who held a charity event to raise money to pay for the fictitious daughter’s funeral.

Ms Pickett went to Hayes School with Wolff and had been her best pal for 10 years.

The 21-year-old said: “I was distraught and very angry. How could she do that to me?

“I feel really hurt and she used my daughter for this sick story.

“I’ve forgiven her in my own way but I couldn’t be her friend now.”

News Shopper: Katie Wolff

Last week at Bromley Magistrates’ Court Wolff (above), of Claremont Close, Orpington, pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation to the value of £558.

She was given a community order to do 180 hours of unpaid work within the next 12 months.

Pub landlord Jamie Newman arranged for the money to be given to the Leukaemia Research charity.

However, the experience has put him off continuing the pub’s tradition of holding fundraising events.

Father-of-two Mr Newman said: “I don’t think I could ask my customers to put their hands in their pockets for someone else.

“The easiest thing for me is to not do it anymore, which is a shame.”

The 55-year-old also said workers and punters would have raised money for the 11-year-old son of a regular who lost his mother to lung cancer, had they not already been duped into fundraising for Wolff.

He said: “Because we were doing something for Katie, we felt we couldn’t ask for another thing as well.”