A primary school teaching assistant, who tricked her friends and work colleagues into believing she had terminal brain cancer in a £20,000 scam, has been jailed for eighteen months.
Mother-of-four Ursula Rose, 42, (pic.top) had a fundraiser to finance private Harley Street treatment and concerned colleagues plunged themselves into debt by taking out loans or withdrawing money from their own childrens' accounts to help.
"You were very much admired by your colleagues and they believed you when you said you had a brain tumour," Croydon Crown Court Judge Jeremy Gold QC told her.
"This was a gross betrayal of their trust. Good people with the best of intentions were completely taken in by your lies.
"You even forged documents to continue your fraud and your fraud, I'm afraid to say, must be categorised as calculated and wicked.
"It makes it all the more sad that you used your effervescent personality to deceive those who trusted you."
Rose, of 32 Westgate Road, South Norwood - who worked at the local Saint Thomas Becket school (pic.bottom) - denied she invented the illness, claiming the victims volunteered to help her through money troubles, even describing her self as the victim of a "witch hunt."
Prosecutor Miss claire Robinson told the court: "The Crown allege that Ursula Rose repeatedly made false representations to friends and work colleagues that she was suffering from cancer, that she had tumours in her head.
"She did this to get their sympathy, to get loans of money from them. This was dishonest and calculated to make people feel sorry for her.
"Over a number of years she repeatedly told friends and colleagues that she was severely ill with cancer and she was doing it in order to gain money from people."
Fellow teaching assistant Gillian Trype (pic.mid.) gave the defendant £3,000 after Rose convinced her she feared dying on the operating theatre table during a £37,000 private operation and felt her husband would not cope financially.
"She told her and others that the brain tumours were growing aggressively and she was going for daily chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment.
"She was told by Ursula Rose that one of the tumours was wrapped around a main artery near her temple and it could kill her at any moment.
"She said it was terminal and at level four and she needed an operation that was too dangerous for the NHS so was paying thirty-seven thousand pounds to go private.
"Mrs Trype's two daughters had money in their savings and she borrowed that, intending to repay it with a lump sum from her pension," explained Miss Robinson.
Rose took time off work for the non-existent 'operation' and when she returned told colleagues it had been partially successful, but a £7,000 American wonder drug could combat the remaining life-threatening tumour.
In June, 2009 staff attended a fundraiser at Croydon's Bar Txt, contributing to a collection aimed at raising money for the new drug.
Another member of staff, Allison Patmore, gave Rose £6,500 as a deposit on a £40,000 private Harley Street operation - again claiming it was too dangerous for the NHS.
Mrs Patmore took out a £6,200 loan, plus £300 cash from her bank account, accepting Rose's claim she would be repaid when her home was remortgaged.
Rose told long-time friend Michelle Willis she had only six months to live and needed a strong dose of radiotherapy - knowing her pal had money remaining from a recent house sale.
Mrs Willis gave her £5,000 and a few weeks later Rose asked for another £5,500 to avoid her home being repossessed. The friend convinced her own daughter, Sarah, to give Rose the money.
Eventually the school's headmaster, Noel Campbell, received confirmation from Rose's doctor at Mayday University hospital that she never had cancer.
"He said she did not, and never had, brain tumours, but suffered from tension-like headaches."
Rose then resigned in February, 2010, telling the headmaster she had been given the cancer all-clear and was cured.
During the trial Rose stuck by her denials, telling the jury: "I never said I needed an operation or that I needed money for a special operation in America. I don't know why my work colleagues would say that.
"It seemed like a bit of a witch hunt," complained Rose. "I never sent texts to anyone, saying my cancer was terminal."
The court heard Rose had serious financial problems and after remortgaging her family home in 2007 was left with monthly payments that increased from £800 to £2,000 per month.
Her lawyer Mr. Christopher Bertham said: "Mrs Rose expresses shame and regret and has asked me to say that to the court, and she is sorry for her behaviour.
"At the time she was operating under not only financial stress, but she was stressed gravely about her state of health as well.
"There is no doubt that the fears and concerns that she had were real enough, but her expression of the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis that she told her colleagues did not reflect the truth."
She was convicted of four counts of fraud, by falsely representing that she had a life-threatening illness, on various dates between September 30, 2008 and July 31, 2009.
Compensation proceedings to collect £15,000 owed to her victims have begun.
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