Woman, 62, lied about having cancer and told the DWP she was terminally ill so she could pocket £23,000

A 62-year-old woman lied about having ovarian cancer to obtain state benefits.

Joan Lesley Clarke told the DWP that she was terminally ill with the disease and in later claims for Personal Independence Payment stated that she was undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy and drug treatment. Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday that she now admits her assertions were untrue and a judge warned her that all sentencing options will be open.

“That does include an immediate custodial sentence,” said Judge David Aubrey, KC. “You have been dishonest to the Department of Work and Pensions and thus been dishonest to the public at large and also dishonest to this court on previous occasions.”

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Clarke, of Blinkhorn Grove, St Helens, has previously repeatedly denied the allegations against her and had been due to face trial later this month but she changed her pleas to guilty today.

She admitted eight offences involving fraud, making or supplying articles for use in fraud and acquiring criminal property. The offences took place between January 2016 and April 2019 in Warrington.

Gareth Roberts, prosecuting, said that the amount involved in the charges totalled just under £23,000. The fraud charges involve declaring on a PIP claim form in March 2016 that she “was suffering from cancer and the prognosis was terminal.”

In November that year she lied in a PIP award review claim that she ‘was undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy and drug treatment.”

The following July she supplied a false letter from Clatterbridge Cancer Centre for use in fraud and in January 2018 she stated that her medical condition had worsened and she was undergoing