Dead baby mortgage fraudster appeal thrown out

Georgina Sharon Murphy was jailed for three years at Mold Crown Court in August last year after admitting eight counts of fraud totalling £250,000, committed over a three-year period.

Murphy secured a £160,000 mortgage from a building society using a false passport in the name of a dead baby who had died within hours of birth.

She also plundered about £80,000 of her aunt’s wealth after she died aged 81.

Murphy was an executor of her relative’s will but never paid her funeral costs in full and grossly misled other family members about her dead aunt’s affairs.

Murphy claimed the sentence ignored her fragile mental health.

Justice Spencer, sitting with Lord Justice Pill and Judge Paul Batty, Queen’s Counsel, said he had read a “plethora of reports” and said: “We accept she had certain mental health problems”.

But there was no suggestion that Murphy was not in full possession of her faculties when she transgressed.

Spencer said: “These were sophisticated frauds which required her to be able to keep her eye on the ball.”

He added that the sentence was not excessive and that “in our view it was moderate”.