A mother who faked having terminal cancer so she could trick her boyfriend into giving her money for a boob job has been ordered to pay back £30,000.
Laura McPherson, 35, took photos of herself in a hospital bed and wore clothing that said ‘breast cancer support’ as part of her ‘elaborate tale of deceit’ against company director Jon Leonard.
The fraudster informed Mr Leonard she had cervical, overian, colon, bowel and breast cancer – and even led her young daughter to believe she was dying.
Mr Leonard was tricked into handing over nearly £25,000 and gifted his then-girlfriend a £30,000 Rolex as a celebratory gift for receiving the all-clear from one type of cancer.
Ms McPherson has now been ordered to pay back £30,714 by January 5 following a crime hearing.
Derby Crown Court heard the compensation would be raised through the sale of a watch but did not specify whether this would be the Rolex, The Sun reports.
It comes after Ms McPherson was spared jail during sentencing in March but handed a community order.
Following the hearing today, Mr Leonard said in a statement: ‘It’s finally over. Today marks the end of eight-and-a-half challenging years.
The court heard Laura McPherson would use her cancer as an excuse to dip out of meetings and even counselled other staff members whose family members had been diagnosed with cancer
Between 2018 and 2022 she variously said she had ovarian, colon, bowel and breast cancer
In an emotional victim impact statement read to the court, Jon Leonard, 44, (pictured) said she had stolen eight years of his life and left him with ‘feelings of total despair, wracked by self-doubt and emotionally scarred’
‘She never had cancer and it has now come to light she has been making up having cancer since she was in secondary school long before I knew her.
‘She has been exposed for the horrible, lying, manipulative individual she is.’
Mr Leonard had previously revealed he received two messages on social media from people who said McPherson had claimed to have cancer in school 11 years earlier.
In March, the court heard she tricked the company director, who runs Ultra Events, a platform for charities, into giving her £24,248.52 for treatments he thought might save her life.
This included a trip to the Mayr Resort on Lake Worthersee in Austria where she enjoyed a holistic, weight loss programme, as well as breast augmentation treatment in Manchester.
In an emotional victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Leonard, then 44, said she had stolen eight years of his life and left him with ‘feelings of total despair, wracked by self-doubt and emotionally scarred’.
She was, he said, a compulsive liar who had told friends and even her young daughter that she had cancer.
This involved him taking calls from McPherson’s daughter’s school, because she had broken down worrying her mother was going to die.
On one occasion McPherson exploded with anger when a member of staff said her father had opted to die with the disease rather than take a course of chemotherapy
McPherson was handed a community order and will be subject to a 7pm to 6am curfew for five nights of the week after pleading guilty to fraud at an earlier hearing
‘Even after pleading guilty, she has spent the last three years spreading disgusting lies about me,’ he said, ‘And she has never shown any remorse.’
He said he had been ‘gaslighted’ and described being woken up by her screaming at him for sleeping through when she had been up all night being sick.
At one point he bought her a £30,000 Rolex that she wanted, reasoning that it was wrong to deny it to someone whose life would soon end.
And on another occasion, he got in touch with one of Britain’s leading private cancer specialists and arranged an appointment for her but she insisted she would rather stick with her NHS treatment.
He said it even caused him to fall out with his oldest friend who had become deputy head of nursing at a hospital in Swansea.
He told Mr Leonard that aspects of McPherson’s treatment did not add up and that you, ‘wouldn’t be going straight to the gym after having chemotherapy’.
‘I was prepared to fall out with my friend,’ he said, ‘I was left completely isolated.’
At the time of her lies, McPherson was working as a marketing director for her boyfriend’s company, Ultra Events, which has helped raise over £39million for charitable causes.
Prosecutor Siward James-Moore said the couple had met in 2011 and that she was very well provided for by her partner whose business was doing well
Judge Jonathan Straw said of McPherson’s (pictured) behaviour: ‘It was a deliberate, narcissistic route to attention and money’
The court heard McPherson would use her cancer as an excuse to dip out of meetings and even counselled other staff members whose family members had been diagnosed with cancer.
On one occasion, she exploded with anger when a member of staff said her father had opted to die with the disease rather than take a course of chemotherapy.
Prosecutor Siward James-Moore said the couple had met in 2011 and that she was very well provided for by her partner, whose business was doing well.
In March 201,7 she first announced she had cervical cancer and was receiving treatment at the Royal Derby Hospital.
At the time, said Mr James-Moore, she asked her partner if he had medical insurance.
Despite his offers to accompany her to her various appointments, she always insisted on going alone.
‘Between 2018 and 2022 she variously said she had ovarian, colon, bowel and breast cancer,’ said Mr James-Moore.
‘She claimed to have travelled for treatment to the Mayr Clinic in Austria (at Mr Leonard’s expense).’
At the time of her lies, McPherson was working as a marketing director for her boyfriend’s company, Ultra Events, which has helped raise over £39 million for charitable causes
In 2020 she claimed to have had a hysterectomy.
‘Strangely she was pictured up a mountain two days later,’ said the prosecutor.
The same year she said that she would need a mastectomy but used the opportunity to have breast augmentation surgery in Manchester at Mr Leonard’s expense.
On New Year’s Eve 2021, Mr Leonard dropped her off for treatment of her cervix.
When he asked for a selfie, she told him that she was on a drip and her phone had broken.
In fact, she had taken a taxi to Coventry to celebrate the New Year.
When arrested and questioned over the allegation of fraud in 2022, she denied it and accused her boyfriend of being controlling.
In mitigation, her barrister, Laura Pitman, said that she suffered from, ‘depression, anxiety and symptoms of trauma’.
Mr Leonard said McPherson was a compulsive liar who had told friends and even her young daughter that she had cancer
She said she was now supported by her parents and a new partner Alex and had a baby in March 2023.
She called on the judge to spare her jail and instead give her intensive intervention from the probation service to find out why she’d acted as she had.
Ms Pitman said her client has no previous convictions of any kind and ‘accepts her behaviour spans a number of years’ and that she has suffered from anxiety and depression. She said: ‘One perhaps wonders why a young woman behaved in the way that she has.
‘She feels awful for the way she behaved. She has sought outside support to look at her behaviour. There has been no further offending by her. There’s a more constructive way Laura McPherson can be dealt with rather than custody.’
She was handed a community order and told to undergo a 7pm-to-6am curfew for five nights of the week after pleading guilty to fraud at an earlier hearing.
The judge also ordered her to spend 30 days with the probation service and warned her that if she broke either then he would send her immediately to prison.