A woman who pretended to have cancer to help defraud the charity she worked for out of more than £85,000 has been jailed for over four years. Patricia Robertshaw, 42, from Barrowford, Lancashire, used false sick notes to claim three months' sick pay from Yorkshire Cancer Research in Harrogate, where she worked as an events manager.
While off work, she used fake degree certificates to apply for jobs at other companies, having used the same fraudulent documents to secure her position at the charity. York Crown Court heard that Robertshaw produced three bogus degree certificates: a masters in science and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Leeds, and a masters in project management from Leeds Metropolitan University.
Prosecutors said the documents helped her negotiate a £10,250 pay rise, which she earned for seven months, totalling £86,833 while working at the charity between September 2015 and November 2017. Her lies unravelled when colleagues scanned the QR codes on her sick notes and found them invalid.
Robertshaw pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud and one of forgery. Sentencing her to four years and five months, Judge Andrew Stubbs QC said: 'Embedded in the charity as you were, you would have known the good that money would have done.' He added that her cancer claims were 'as bogus as the qualifications you had used' and that she showed 'no apparent sense of shame'.
Robert Sandford, prosecuting, said Robertshaw began faking cancer in April 2016, claiming she was receiving treatment at Airedale General Hospital and Barrowford Surgery until she was discovered in November 2017. Her employers twice offered independent health assessments, but she refused both times.
The court also heard that in a previous role at Leeds Beckett University, she forged invalid certificates for 55 students to save herself work, leading the university to pay £500 settlements to 36 of them. Catherine Silverton, defending, said Robertshaw had a history of mental health issues and borderline personality disorder, and expressed remorse through her barrister.
