Greedy Granny Gets Jail-Time for Defrauding £1 Million (€1,126,000) from the DHS

A ‘Greedy Granny’ stole £1 million over 15 years in one of the country’s biggest benefit frauds on record.

THE court in Manchester was told that the ‘staggeringly dishonest’ 65-year-old stole the details of her sister, daughter-in-law, and her husband’s dead first wife in an elaborate plan to steal money from the public purse.

All throughout her time offending, Pomfrey claimed she was completely blind despite later admitting to police that she could drive.

Another claim was that multiple sclerosis (MS) left her unable to walk, dress, wash or go to the toilet without help, Pomfrey used all these details to claim money she wasn’t owed and to claim payment for a carer.

The game was up when she was spotted by surveillance investigators driving, picking up her grandchildren from school and reading a newspaper and when police searched Pomfrey’s home they found precision glue, craft knives, and ‘four types of tweezers’ that she had apparently used to concoct false documents.

When she was finally arrested, Pomfrey told police “I’m guilty of everything,” but claimed that she had given all the money away to the homeless, people who were lonely, and people who had been raped and abused.

She told officers she was glad to be caught and said her husband and relatives knew nothing about her crimes, adding: “I have had all the money and that’s it. I’m guilty.”

The court heard that Pomfrey had spent at least some of the money she stole on holidays, hotels, restaurants and ‘cosmetic treatments’ such as manicures.

Pomfrey, of The Glen, Palacefield, Runcorn, has now been jailed for three years and eight months after admitting a string of fraud offences, her daughter, Aimee Brown, of Wycliffe Road, Runcorn, was sentenced to 18 months in prison suspended for two years for money laundering.