A woman who duped people she befriended down the pub out of nearly half a million pounds has lost an appeal to reduce her sentence. 

Susan Goose, 64, persuaded her targets to hand over money by telling them bogus stories. These included that she needed funds to pay legal fees in a civil case over inheritance allegedly owed to her.

Other victims were told she needed funds to buy her mother's council flat, or to pursue the family of a driver who killed her 14-year-old daughter Chloe when a car crashed into a shop in Hethersett in 2006.

Chloe Goose, 14, died in 2006 when a car crashed in a shop in HethersettChloe Goose, 14, died in 2006 when a car crashed in a shop in Hethersett (Image: Submitted)

Instead, police found she had spent over £130,000 with online gambling websites.

READ MORE: Norwich pub scammer jailed for 13-year £440,000 fraud

Goose, of Wycliffe Road, Norwich, was jailed for six years at Norwich Crown Court in May after admitting five counts of fraud by false representation between 2011 and 2024 and asking for two more to be taken into consideration.

But in an application to the Court of Appeal she sought to reduce her jail term by claiming Judge Andrew Shaw had failed to take full account of personal mitigation. 

Her defence counsel Andrew Oliver said it was wrong to penalise her for shaking her head, that she had partly repaid some of the victims, and that she had a gambling addiction.

But, dismissing the appeal, a panel of three judges upheld her sentence.

It ruled that Judge Shaw was entitled to take her shaking her head during the reading out of victim impact statements as an indication of lack of remorse. 

The Court of Appeal said Judge Andrew Shaw had been right to find that Goose had shown a lack of remorseThe Court of Appeal said Judge Andrew Shaw had been right to find that Goose had shown a lack of remorse (Image: Newsquest)

READ MORE: All the scams people in Norfolk should know about this week

Lord Justice Coulson added: “Not to put too fine a point on it, you have no notion of shame, and the extent of your exploitative and manipulative behaviour included relying on the death of your daughter and the frailty of your elderly mother."

In total Goose scammed seven victims out of £426,769, most of whom she had approached in pubs across the city.

One victim was persuaded to make 484 separate transactions over a period of years, beginning in March 2017.

She lost £149,624, which contributed to the breakdown of her marriage and the loss of her family home.