‘Britain’s worst benefits cheat’ who swindled £750k by faking dementia is freed

A pensioner who swindled £750,000 by hiding her father’s death and faking dementia has been released from prison after serving less than half of her sentence. Ethel McGill, 72, was jailed for five years and eight months in July 2019.

But she was only behind bars from July 2019 until the “second half of 2022”. She admitted to hiding her father’s death for 12 years so she could claim his war pension and benefits.

At the time, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it was one of the “largest ever cases of benefit fraud by a single person”. Over the years, she had received £750,000 of public money she was “not entitled to” according to the CPS.

Liverpool Crown Court heard Ms McGill got a friend to lie under a blanket and pretend to be her father, at her home in Runcorn, Cheshire.

The Daily Mail reports the court heard McGill faked dementia and mobility issues over 20 years. However, she was once filmed moving without any assistance and driving despite saying she needed a wheelchair.

Judge Steven Everett told McGill: “Part of your problem is that nobody, including me, believes that you are ill, and that you have been putting this on for years. Your devious behaviour, with very little remorse, has caught up with you and now you will have to pay the penalty.”

Judge Steven Everett added: “The authorities may look at themselves and wonder how they let this happen and they don’t come out of this at all well but the whole dishonesty comes down to you, you did it.”

McGill’s defence barrister, Dan Gaskell, said she should get a short sentence because she never lived a lavish lifestyle. He said: “She lives in fairly straightened circumstances. There is no indication that she has lived a life of excess.”

However, the judge said she was making “way more than the average person”. 

At a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Chester Crown Court on August 10, 2020, McGill was given a confiscation order to the sum of £200,500.

The order stated that if she did not pay this within 12 weeks, she could be committed for a further term of imprisonment of eight months.

Ms McGill, of Runcorn, Cheshire, did not pay and was therefore handed the extra time, making her total sentence six years and six months.