A woman who claims to be a Grenfell survivor has been jailed after pretending to be dead in a bid to dodge punishment for driving offences. Zoe Bernard, 38, gave a false name when caught driving carelessly while banned and without insurance - but when her real name was discovered she applied for a death certificate to try and convince police she had died.
She was eventually convicted for the driving matters in December last year, unsuccessfully arguing it was not her driving, but a male passenger. Southwark Crown Court heard she has a catalogue of previous convictions, including drink-driving, driving while disqualified, battery and assaulting police officers.
Now she has been jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice. Sentencing judge Martin Beddoe said Bernard, of Notting Hill, West London, had a history of "deploying and exaggerating '' traumatic experiences in her past to avoid responsibility for offending.
It was said Bernard’s uncle died in the Grenfell Tower blaze on June 14, 2017 and she also claims to have been a resident at the time. Her uncle is believed to be Raymond ‘Moses’ Bernard, who lived in the tower block for more than 30 years, and died alongside seven others in his flat.
Her mother, Bernadette, gave evidence at the Grenfell Inquiry about how her daughter “rushed” to the tower on the night of the fire and witnessed the blaze. Lawyers for Bernard initially said her eldest daughter died in a car crash, but after a brief adjournment, they corrected to say Bernard claims she also died in the Grenfell fire.
Jailing Bernard, Judge Beddoe said: “I don’t doubt some of the traumatic experiences are genuine, but not necessarily all of them. I think you deploy them with convenience and then both misuse them and exaggerate them to avoid your responsibility.”
The court heard Bernard failed to stop when police tried to pull her over in her BMW Kilburn, west London, for careless driving in November 2020. When arrested she gave her name as ‘Kyesha Bernard’ but when taken to the police station it was established through address and vehicle registration searches she was Zoe Bernard.
Prosecutor Gregor McKinley said: “The investigating officer PC Hockton then wrote to Ms Bernard requesting her to attend the police station for a voluntary interview.“
He says he was contacted on a number of occasions between 15 december 2020 and 27 january 2021 by someone calling herself Shanice Bernard and claiming to be Zoe Bernard’s sister.“
She said Zoe had been ill and that she was dead.”
Margo Munro Kerr, defending, told the court she had two documents from a team that supports Grenfell victims and their families showing Bernard had first been referred in 2017 and again in October 2021. A psychiatrist’s report on Bernard was also handed to the court but the doctor said he was unable to diagnose Bernard with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as he did not have access to all of her medical records.
Ms Munro Kerr said: “In the psychiatrist’s report it says Ms Bernard was feeling suicidal prior and planning her death so she applied for a death certificate.”Judge Beddoe said: “I don’t accept that for a minute. It’s complete nonsense.”
