A CONWOMAN who lied about having cancer after scamming £2.6million from 1,500 people was jailed for nine years yesterday.
Travel agent Lyne Barlow, 39, blew the money on a Range Rover, designer clothes, holidays to Dubai and trying to prop up her ailing business.
She was “riding the monster of deceit” as she even targeted her own family to fund her lavish lifestyle, pocketing £500,000 from her mother.
As the net closed in she claimed to have stage 4 cancer in a desperate bid to avoid prosecution.
She cut strands of her hair and scattered them on her pillow to trick her husband and son and daughter, aged five and four, into thinking that she was losing it as a result of chemotherapy.
And she asked relatives to give her lifts to hospital for made-up appointments with her consultant.
When Barlow was arrested she kept up the pretence, hobbling into the police station with a walking stick and with her head in a scarf.
But a second custody snap when police proved she was lying after checking her medical records showed a vast difference — she looked fit and healthy and had a full head of hair.
She defrauded her own mother, Susan Coleman, out of £500,000 made up of savings and an insurance payout following the early death of her father.
Barlow took over her grieving mother’s financial affairs as she struggled to come to terms with losing her husband in 2015.
As she systematically emptied her mother’s accounts she intercepted her post to stop her getting bank statements.
She also mocked up statements to make it look like her mother’s savings were growing when, in fact, they were disappearing.
Barlow also took her mum away on holidays but only so they were not at home when the bailiffs were due to call.
NHS ward sister Mrs Coleman was left penniless by her daughter, who used part of the money to set up Lyne Barlow Independent Travel in Stanley, Co Durham.
Her new travel agency offered cut-price holidays to drum up trade and customers rushed to snap up bargains such as all-inclusive trips to Dubai for just £500.
But they were left furious when holidays they had booked failed to materialise, or hotel rooms were not paid for when they arrived.
Others were stranded abroad when their return flights had not been booked.
Durham Police were flooded with so many complaints they set up a dedicated email address.
To dodge the accusations Barlow claimed she had cancer and it was spreading.
In total she was proved to have defrauded family, friends and 1,416 customers out of £1.2million but investigators believe the total sum over a five-year period from 2015 to 2020 was £2.6million.
She admitted fraud at an earlier hearing.
Sentencing Barlow at Durham crown court, Judge Joanne Kidd told her: “The extent of the betrayal of your own mother is truly breathtaking.
“I take the view that you are a thoroughly callous individual.”
Det Sgt Alan Meehan, of Durham Police’s Complex Fraud Team, called her cancer claims “a determined and calculated attempt to distract attention from her crimes”.
