Con artist who drove family to suicide dies in jail

A CON artist who drove a mother and daughter to commit suicide in a bizarre fraud plot has died in prison.

Linsey Cotton was found dead in her cell less than six months into a three-year sentence. According to reports, she died of natural causes at the age of 33.

Cotton was jailed in October for an extortion plot that led to Margaret McDonough, 53, and her daughter Nicola, 23, killing themselves in a Greenock hotel.

The fraudster concocted an elaborate plot which left the women fearing they would be imprisoned or killed by the Government.

She alleged they had breached a confidentiality clause relating to the medical treatment of a person whose identity she had made up.

Mrs McDonough and Nicola were thought to have been left petrified at the prospect of spending life in prison and were later found injured with slash wounds at the Premier Inn in Greenock.

Sentencing Cotton at Paisley Sheriff Court, Sheriff Robert Fife said she was a “wicked” liar who had “created a series of fictitious persons to dupe the McDonough family”.

The sheriff added that Cotton’s actions were an “extraordinary, complex and intricate web of deceit and lies”.

The court heard that over the course of a year, Cotton, a mother-of-two, had tricked Margaret’s son Michael out of £5,000 and expensive gifts, including an engagement ring.

She also tried to get £5,500 from Mrs McDonough, a foster carer and former Liberal Democrat council candidate, and Nicola, a social work graduate and former charity worker.