Benefit fraudster gran who lied she was blind & swindled £13,000 a month dies leaving council £240,000 out of pocket

A BENEFIT fraudster gran who swindled more than £1million out of the system has died.

Christina Pomfrey, who was 65 at the time, used two identities and claimed everything from income support to housing benefit to disability living allowance.

A court heard how the gran, from Runcorn, Cheshire, "grossly exaggerated" her disabilities to falsely claim more than £1million in benefits.

It meant at one stage she was raking in £13,000 a month - five times the earnings of an average Brit.

The Halton Borough Council raised debt invoices to claim the money back, but the authority was recently informed of Pomfrey's death.

And now the debt will have to be written off due to Pomfrey having no estate, according to .

A report to the executive board read: "Following the individual's passing, the council continued to attempt to recover the debts from the individual's estate.

"However, we have been informed that the fraudulently obtained monies had been used to fund day to day living expenses, holidays etc. over many years.

"As a result, there are no assets remaining in the individual's estate from which the council could obtain payment of the outstanding debts.

"The situation is the same for Oldham Council and the DWP."

'CRAFTIEST WOMAN'

Clueless John Pomfrey, who married Christina in 2005, was none the wiser.

He told the : "People think I must have known what she was up to and where all the money went, but the answer to both is I don't have a clue.

"She has destroyed my life and I cannot forgive her. She is the craftiest woman I have ever known."

Pomfrey had told her husband she was a millionaire from the moment they met at a Butlins Disco in Skegness.

She said she had seven newsagents dotted around Liverpool, when in reality, she was sacked from one for stealing money out of the till.

Mr Pomfrey said: "She was bright and bubbly and everyone liked her because she passed herself off as kind and generous — she never asked me for a penny, right up until the end.

"I fell for her because I was at a low ebb after my previous wife of 21 years left me for someone else.

"Tina told me she would look after me and that I should not worry about anything.

"She even bought me an MG car just months after we met and, at the start, she paid for some of the holidays we went on in places like the Caribbean.

"We went to the Dominican Republic four times, Madeira a few times or even just places like Benidorm.

"I insisted I wanted to pay half after the first couple of times. I now think she picked on me because I was another name, in another county, that she could use for her cons. I feel a fool."

BUSTED

The scamming gran was finally caught out when surveillance by investigators showed her driving, walking while reading a newspaper and collecting her grandkids from school.

She was jailed for three years and eight months after pleading guilty to multiple counts of fraud, false accounting and making or supplying articles for use in frauds.

When confronted with the evidence, she said she was relieved to be finally caught and claimed she had given the money away to charity and those in need.

But she admitted she had spent cash on numerous holidays, cosmetic treatment and clothes.