Sobbing woman claimed dead mum's £50k pension for five years as she was 'too scared'

A disgraced church worker sobbed in the dock in court as she was sentenced by a judge for claiming her dead mum's pension for five years. Angela Potter, 63, fraudulently raked in £50,000 of taxpayer cash.

A court heard Potter claimed her elderly mum's weekly pension and pension credit for five years following her death in April 2017, then admitted what she had done when investigators looked into the payments.

Potter's offending, heard Liverpool Crown Court, was only discovered in mid-2022, after a Department for Work and Pensions officer was unable to contact her mum and decided to visit her house on Westminster Road, Walton. But the door was answered by Potter, who "frankly admitted her mother had died in April 2017".

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She appeared at Liverpool Crown Court, where she pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud, committed between April 4 2017 and May 2022.

Prosecutor Carmel Wilde said: "The defendant's mother was claiming a state pension and pension credit. It was after her mother's death she continued to obtain these weekly benefits, and it continued for a five year period. In total, she obtained £52,796.81."

After being caught by the DWP, Potter, of Henry Edward Street, Vauxhall, was questioned about why she failed to inform the authority of her mum's death. She said: "I wanted to, I was just scared as time went on. I was like, oh gosh, just went on too long and I was too scared really."

She claimed she had used £5,500 of the money to pay for her mum's funeral and gravestone, but she "didn't know" why she had taken the other £47,296, reports The Echo. She said: "I just hated every minute of doing it.