Sarah Yarwood, who said she had six months to live in a twisted act of dishonesty, has been jailed after a judge in Preston, Lancashire, blasted her “sustained” campaign of fraud
A benefits cheat managed to swindle £70,000 after claiming she was riddled with cancer.
Sarah Yarwood used fake hospital letters and records in a twisted bid to back up her lie she had six months to live. A court heard the 39-year-old woman claimed she was single and living alone, but in fact lived with her partner.
And, over a six-year period, Yarwood received personal independent payments (PIP) of £27,998 and universal credit (UC) payments of £42,157 by repeatedly playing “that bleeding-heart violin.” She said she needed the cash “just to get by” and continued to claim more money even when suspicions were raised.
But yesterday, Yarwood was jailed for three years and nine months at Preston Crown Court after a judge told her she had carried out “sustained” fraud.
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Judge Michael Maher told Yarwood: “As serious as this undoubtedly was, it’s eclipsed by your grotesque lies you told about your terminal illness and the bogus medical letters you created in order to secure PIP payments. One of the startling features of this fraud is the sheer relentlessness of it… And the detail you leave, layer upon layer, in relation to your phoney illnesses.”
Yarwood claimed she was “riddled” with cancer and previously said she had several other serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and Lewy body dementia. She used forged hospital letters and records to back up her lies between 2017 and 2023, until authorities became suspicious.
The court heard the benefits cheat “milked the system” and had kept playing “that bleeding-heart violin” during this timeframe. Eleanor Brambell, prosecuting, said Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) records showed that Yarwood made claims on the basis that she had “terminal cancer.”
In October, 2017, she phoned a PIP claim line to seek payments under “special rules” that apply to people “who have a terminal prognosis and are expected to live less than six months.” This meant her claim was “fast-tracked” and she was given an automatic three-year benefits award, Ms Brambell said.
Yarwood, from Cleveleys, Lancashire, claimed that her bone cancer had “spread to her liver” and she’d undergone chemotherapy, but there was “no other treatment” available because her condition was terminal. Ms Brambell said Yarwood went on to falsely claim she’d been “misdiagnosed” and didn’t have multiple sclerosis but had Parkinson’s disease.
Niamh Ingham, defending, said Yarwood had no previous convictions and had been diagnosed with “complex PTSD”, enduring personality change after a catastrophic experience and a depressive disorder. The court was told Yarwood had only paid back £1196 of the money she fraudulently claimed and was now £30,000 in debt.
