A WOMAN pretended to be dying of cancer to get a friend to give her thousands of pounds, a court was told yesterday.

The victim of Sylvia Mitchell’s deception gave her the only cash she had available – from a fund to pay for her mother’s funeral.

And when her mother died a year later, she did not have enough to pay for it.

Mitchell, 51, who yesterday admitted a string of deception and forgery charges, was told by a Durham Crown Court judge she had committed a “despicable crime”.

Sentencing her to nine months in jail, suspended for two years, Judge Chris Prince said: “It beggars the belief of right-thinking people that such meanness could be operated by somebody in such a manipulative fashion.

“I am quite sure that such behaviour will prey on your conscience for a long time to come.”

The court was told Mitchell had befriended Barbara Malley – a vulnerable and easilyled person – in Cornwall, in the Nineties.

Shaun Dryden, prosecuting, said Mitchell moved in with her and left after two years, not having paid any rent or expenses.

She met and married Kevin Mitchell and moved to Carlisle, Cumbria. In 2002, she persuaded Ms Malley and her mother to move there too, to be closer to her.

There, Mitchell told Ms Malley she had an inoperable lung tumour and had only two months to live.

Mr Dryden said: “She said it would be her last Christmas and asked her for money to throw a really good last party.”

Ms Malley only had a few hundred pounds in cash, but Mitchell knew that she had a fund of about £3,000 for her mother’s funeral.

She promised to repay her within a week, but did not honour this. She also rented a house, leaving £2,400 in rent arrears.

Mitchell forged cheques of £800 and £1,600 for the landlord, using her husband’s name.

She also borrowed a further total of £7,900 in various amounts from her brother-inlaw, without repaying it.

Mitchell, of Cedar Grove, Shildon, County Durham, pleaded guilty to four charges of deception, including the evasion of liability, and two charges of forgery between November 2002 and April 2004.

She denied a further five charges, which remain on file.

Ian Bradshaw, mitigating, said Mitchell, who was brought into court on a stretcher, was getting 12-hour daily care for a back condition and was a benefit dependent.