An Australian woman has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for falsely claiming her six-year-old son had cancer.
The 45-year-old used the lie to collect money from people she knew and support an expensive lifestyle. She was “living the life of the rich and famous”, although she had financial problems, a local court heard last month.
District Court judge Geraldine Davison said the woman, who wasn’t named, had tried to explain her actions by pointing to money problems, but in reality her crimes were a carefully planned “attention-seeking device”.
Prosecutors told the court the woman had made her son “unnecessarily wear bandages to his head and hands, shaved his hair and eyebrows, administered medications despite his protestations, and imposed unnecessary restrictions in his activities”. These actions were part of a plan to make people believe that the child was seriously ill.
The woman admitted guilt to 11 charges, including deception and actions that could harm her child.
At her sentencing on Wednesday, the judge described the woman’s crimes as “cruel”, “calculated” and “manipulative”.
The judge said a message sent to her son’s school community “had set up a substantial deception which was perpetrated on many individuals”.
“After this, you uploaded several posts to social media depicting your son with a shaved head and requesting donations for his ongoing treatment,” the judge said.
The deception began after the boy visited an eye specialist following an accident. Soon after, the mother told her family, friends, and school community that he had eye cancer.
“You also uploaded several posts depicting his head and hands covered in bandages and him attending at cancer centres,” the judge said.
Prosecutors said she had “selfishly used her son as a prop to deceive” others and spent the money on a lifestyle that made her family appear wealthy.
Prosecutor Annie O’Sullivan told the court that the actions of the Adelaide woman resulted in her son “experiencing pain and distress”.
The woman’s lawyer told the court she had financial difficulties and developed a gambling addiction after the Covid pandemic. They said she did not intend to harm her son.
She “capitalised” on her child’s accident “and selfishly used her son, and by extension her daughter, as props to deceive friends, family and the wider community”, the lawyer said.
“From there, she started to deceive her family and friends and the wider school community that her son was diagnosed with eye cancer, and requested donations,” they added. “It was never her intention to cause harm or distress to her children, rather a monumental and grave lapse in judgement to selfishly ease her financial stress.”
The court also heard that the woman had recently been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and “wholeheartedly” accepted her wrongdoing, but that her “insight is lacking, in some respects”.
Her husband was not involved in the offences. He said in court that the situation destroyed his family.
“No sentence can ever justify what has been done to my children,” he told reporters outside the court.
The mother was sentenced to four years and three months in prison. She is eligible for parole in April next year.
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