Granny lied to swindle over £1m in disability benefits

A GRANDMOTHER “grossly exaggerated” her disabilities to falsely claim more than £1m in benefits over 15 years, a court has heard.

Christina Pomfrey, 65, lied she was totally blind and wheelchairbound, but surveillance showed her driving, going for a walk unaided while reading a newspaper and collecting her grandchildren from school.

When confronted, she said she was relieved to be finally caught and claimed she had given the money away to charity and those in need. However, she also admitted she had spent cash on numerous holidays, cosmetic treatment and clothes.

Yesterday, Pomfrey, from Runcorn, was jailed for three years and eight months after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to multiple counts of fraud, false accounting and making or supplying articles for use in frauds.

Sentencing, Judge Sophie McKone told her: “This was money to which you were not entitled. Over 15 years, you stole £1m from your fellow citizens. Money which would have gone to people who justly deserved it, money that could have gone to schools and hospitals.

“This was a determined benefit fraud on a substantial scale.”

The court heard that despite Pomfrey’s admissions in December 2017, she continued to lie about her personal circumstances and health to claim benefits, which the Judge said was “staggeringly dishonest”.

Her daughter, Aimee Brown, 34, received an 18-month jail term, suspended for two years, after laundering £80,000 of the cash into her bank account and keeping more than £70,000.

She was “hoodwinked” by her mother and had no knowledge of the extent of her lies, but had entered a guilty plea to money laundering because she did not act on her suspicions, the court heard.