{"id":90948,"date":"2025-08-25T05:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T05:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/90948\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T05:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T05:10:10","slug":"catfish-who-tricked-her-best-friend-into-thinking-she-had-a-boyfriend-for-15-years-and-conned-her-out-of-thousands-of-pounds-is-jailed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/90948\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Catfish’ who tricked her best friend into thinking she had a boyfriend for 15 YEARS and conned her out of thousands of pounds is jailed"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman brainwashed her housemate into believing she had a boyfriend during a ‘wicked’ catfishing scam lasting almost 15 years, a court heard.<\/p>\n

In what was likened to ‘a plot from a Netflix<\/a> drama’, Claire Gilbert, 45, created fake online identities to fool her best friend Michelle Oldham.<\/p>\n

Miss Oldham became besotted with a fictitious man, called ‘Carl Murphy’, swapping intimate and sexual messages with him.<\/p>\n

She was also made to believe he had a young child called ‘Katie’ \u2013 a situation Gilbert used to extract money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The conwoman has now been jailed for three years after admitting stalking and fraud at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.<\/p>\n

The victim was persuaded to pay thousands of pounds for ‘Katie’, towards a non-existent school trip to Disneyland in Paris, Christmas<\/a> and birthday gifts and a mobile phone.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 but warned she could not visit her in hospital.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Claire <\/p>\n

Claire Gilbert, 45, created fake online identities to fool her best friend Michelle Oldham (pictured)<\/p>\n

\"Claire <\/p>\n

Claire Gilbert (pictured), who stole thousands of pounds, has now been jailed for three years after admitting stalking and fraud<\/p>\n

\"Manchester <\/p>\n

Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard Miss Oldham (pictured with her mother) became besotted with ‘Murphy’ and swapped intimate and sexual messages with him<\/p>\n

In 2019 she moved in with her sister \u2013 but Gilbert, of Dukinfield, Manchester, used her name to buy \u00a34,000 of shopping.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Police were called in when the victim started receiving debt-collection letters over unpaid bills.<\/p>\n

In a statement Miss Oldham told how the ‘psychological manipulation, emotional abuse and deception’ she suffered was devastating’ and called for ‘catfishing’ \u2013 creating a fake online profile to deceive others \u2013 to become a criminal offence.<\/p>\n

Miss Oldham told how she met Gilbert when they both worked in retail in Manchester in 2005.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said: ‘I befriended Claire out of the goodness of my heart, took her in and looked after her.’<\/p>\n

Tara Riley prosecuting said: ‘The defendant claimed she was a victim of domestic abuse and Miss Oldham supported her and they moved in together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Shortly afterwards Miss Oldham was contacted by an individual called Carl Murphy who portrayed himself as a friend of the defendant.’<\/p>\n

The pair exchanged messages and Miss Oldham ‘thought was in a relationship to the extent she shared sexualised messages’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gilbert also sent messages purporting to be from Carl’s sister, daughter and mother.<\/p>\n

‘In effect, the life Miss Oldham believed she had lived for 14 years was completely fabricated by this defendant,’ Ms Riley said.<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In a statement Miss Oldham told of the ‘psychological manipulation, emotional abuse and deception’ she suffered<\/p>\n

\"Pictured: <\/p>\n

Pictured: Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court where the case was heard\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Miss <\/p>\n

Miss Oldham (pictured with her sister Lauren) became isolated from her real family and friends and eventually suffered a nervous breakdown<\/p>\n

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.’<\/p>\n

She began to have suspicions when she caught Gilbert using ‘Carl’s’ Facebook account.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She later searched Gilbert’s belongings, finding cards and gifts to ‘Carl’ and ‘Katie’, and a phone with a number she had saved\u00a0as ‘Katie’.<\/p>\n

Police raided Gilbert’s home in October 2020 and officers seized phones and a letter Miss Oldham had written to ‘Katie.’<\/p>\n

Shirlee Duckworth, defending, said: ‘The facts of this case are extraordinary and almost like the plot of a Netflix drama.’<\/p>\n

The court heard the abuse began in 2005 but charges only spanned 2013 to 2020, because stalking laws were not in force until then.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Even when Miss Oldham suffered a nervous breakdown you persisted with your wicked fictions.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman brainwashed her housemate into believing she had a boyfriend during a ‘wicked’ catfishing scam lasting almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[97,59,57,58,392,50,13772,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-90948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-greatbritain","12":"tag-netflix","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-paris","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}