A woman brainwashed her housemate into believing she had a boyfriend during a ‘wicked’ catfishing scam lasting almost 15 years, a court heard.
In what was likened to ‘a plot from a Netflix drama’, Claire Gilbert, 45, created fake online identities to fool her best friend Michelle Oldham.
Miss Oldham became besotted with a fictitious man, called ‘Carl Murphy’, swapping intimate and sexual messages with him.
She was also made to believe he had a young child called ‘Katie’ – a situation Gilbert used to extract money.
The conwoman has now been jailed for three years after admitting stalking and fraud at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.
The victim was persuaded to pay thousands of pounds for ‘Katie’, towards a non-existent school trip to Disneyland in Paris, Christmas and birthday gifts and a mobile phone.
She was even left ‘consumed by guilt and grief’ when she was told the girl was seriously ill with meningitis and was in a coma, needing her fingers amputating – but warned she could not visit her in hospital.
Miss Oldham, now 45, became isolated from her real family and friends and eventually suffered a nervous breakdown, with her weight plummeting to just seven stone.
In 2019 she moved in with her sister – but Gilbert, of Dukinfield, Manchester, used her name to buy £4,000 of shopping.
Police were called in when the victim started receiving debt-collection letters over unpaid bills.
In a statement Miss Oldham told how the ‘psychological manipulation, emotional abuse and deception’ she suffered was devastating’ and called for ‘catfishing’ – creating a fake online profile to deceive others – to become a criminal offence.
Miss Oldham told how she met Gilbert when they both worked in retail in Manchester in 2005.
She said: ‘I befriended Claire out of the goodness of my heart, took her in and looked after her.’
Tara Riley prosecuting said: ‘The defendant claimed she was a victim of domestic abuse and Miss Oldham supported her and they moved in together.
‘Shortly afterwards Miss Oldham was contacted by an individual called Carl Murphy who portrayed himself as a friend of the defendant.’
The pair exchanged messages and Miss Oldham ‘thought was in a relationship to the extent she shared sexualised messages’.
Gilbert also sent messages purporting to be from Carl’s sister, daughter and mother.
‘In effect, the life Miss Oldham believed she had lived for 14 years was completely fabricated by this defendant,’ Ms Riley said.
Miss Oldham, who has undergone counselling, said: ‘The only reason I didn’t take my own life was I couldn’t bear to put my family through that pain.’
She began to have suspicions when she caught Gilbert using ‘Carl’s’ Facebook account.
She later searched Gilbert’s belongings, finding cards and gifts to ‘Carl’ and ‘Katie’, and a phone with a number she had saved as ‘Katie’.
Police raided Gilbert’s home in October 2020 and officers seized phones and a letter Miss Oldham had written to ‘Katie.’
Shirlee Duckworth, defending, said: ‘The facts of this case are extraordinary and almost like the plot of a Netflix drama.’
The court heard the abuse began in 2005 but charges only spanned 2013 to 2020, because stalking laws were not in force until then.
Sentencing, Judge Bernadette Baxter told Gilbert: ‘In nothing I have read have you shown one jot of remorse or insight for what you have done.
‘Even when Miss Oldham suffered a nervous breakdown you persisted with your wicked fictions.’
