A mother who shaved her young son's head and eyebrows and forced him to use a wheelchair to feign serious illness has been jailed for three years and nine months. The woman, from Gloucestershire, claimed £85,899.44 in benefits over three years while the boy was aged six to nine.
She made him wear a bandana to school and remain in a wheelchair, despite being ridiculed by classmates. The fraud included forging doctors' notes to claim he suffered from autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome (ALPS) and later lymphoma. She also obtained a new car and took the boy on holiday to Florida, where she used the wheelchair to skip queues.
Gloucester Crown Court heard the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had a personality disorder. Sentencing her, Judge Jamie Tabor QC described her behaviour as 'cruelty over a long period of time' and called her a 'congenital liar'. He said the boy had been 'devastated by his mother's use of him as a tool for money'.
The fraud was uncovered when the boy's father became suspicious and consulted a GP. The woman admitted one count of child cruelty, eight counts of fraud and one of forgery. In a victim impact statement, the boy said: 'I don't like her, she is evil. She should be normal, but I don't think she has a normal brain.'
The court was told the woman stopped the boy from running and playing, and he was desperate to leave the wheelchair. After her arrest, the boy and his siblings were taken into care. He added: 'When we first went, I missed Mum, but I didn't understand what was happening. Now I know, I don't miss her anymore.'
