Woman told everyone her son had cancer, put him in a wheelchair with bandages to get $60,000 in donations
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Woman told everyone her son had cancer, put him in a wheelchair with bandages to get $60,000 in donations")
Representative image for Australia fake cancer story.
An Australian woman told everyone that her son had cancer and even dressed him up with bandages and put him in a wheelchair to get donations. The case shocked everyone when it came to light last year.
A woman in Australia faked her six-year-old son's cancer diagnosis to get people to donate money to help them. She has pleaded guilty to the charges slapped against her. Nine News reported that the 45-year-old was arrested last December. The mother is accused of lying about her son's health, claiming he has cancer, to secure $60,000 in donations from the community. She admitted 11 charges in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Thursday (Oct 16). The prosecutors alleged that the woman went to great lengths to ensure the entire act came across as real. She even covered her son with bandages to create the illusion that he was receiving radiotherapy treatment and put him in a wheelchair to make it more convincing. She set up an online fundraising page to invite donations, and also asked her son's school to arrange for monetary help.
The woman's husband was also initially charged, but they were dropped in May. Meanwhile, her charges were changed to one count of criminal neglect, 56 counts of deception to obtain a benefit and 14 counts of dishonestly dealing with property. The prosecutors told the court on Thursday that plea bargain negotiations had been concluded and the case was resolved. She appeared in court via video link from the Adelaide Women's Prison and admitted to "10 charges of deception to obtain a benefit, totalling $11,500, for amounts ranging from $500 to $3000, between November 21 and December 12, 2024," Nine News reported.
How could someone use cancer and their own child in this manner?
The case created quite an uproar in the court when the woman's elaborate scheme was revealed last year. Acting Assistant Commissioner John DeCandia was shocked to see a mother fake her own kid's sickness and use something like cancer to fool people. He said he had never seen a "more devious and cruel" scheme. He said at the time, "It's abhorrent that (a person) would seek to profit for their own personal greed and selfishness from such an insidious condition such as cancer, which impacts so many families in our community."
