A woman has been jailed for a shocking 15-year “catfishing” campaign in which she invented a boyfriend and child to dupe her best friend, leaving the victim devastated
A woman who tricked her best friend into believing she was in a relationship with a fictitious man for almost 15 years has been jailed after a judge condemned her “wicked” actions.
Claire Gilbert, 45, carried out an elaborate catfishing plot by inventing the persona of “Carl Murphy” and fabricating an entire family around him, including a young daughter called “Katie.” Through these fake identities, she lured her housemate Michelle Oldham into what she believed was a long-term romantic relationship.
During the scam, Gilbert, from Manchester, persuaded her victim to send thousands of pounds towards gifts, a mobile phone, and even a fabricated school trip to Disneyland Paris for “Katie.” At one point, Oldham was told the child had meningitis, was in a coma, and needed her fingers amputated – yet was warned she could not visit her in hospital.
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The court heard how the deception left Oldham emotionally shattered.
She became cut off from friends and family, suffered a breakdown, and her weight dropped to just seven stone.
In 2019, after moving in with her sister, she began receiving debt-collection letters when Gilbert fraudulently used her name to buy £4,000 of shopping. Police were eventually called, exposing the scam.
In a statement to the court, Oldham said the “psychological manipulation, emotional abuse and deception” had been devastating.
She added: “The only reason I didn’t take my own life was I couldn’t bear to put my family through that pain.”
Prosecutor Tara Riley told Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court that the case spanned from 2005, when the women first met working in retail, until Gilbert’s arrest in 2020.
Riley explained that Gilbert initially portrayed herself as a victim of domestic abuse before introducing the fictional “Carl Murphy” as a supposed friend. Messages then began between Oldham and “Carl,” evolving into what she believed was a genuine romantic relationship.
Over the years Gilbert maintained the pretence by sending further communications purporting to be from Carl’s mother, sister, and young daughter.
“In effect, the life Miss Oldham believed she had lived for 14 years was completely fabricated by this defendant,” Ms Riley said.
Oldham’s suspicions were eventually raised when she noticed Gilbert using “Carl’s” Facebook account.
Searching her belongings, she found cards and gifts supposedly from Carl and Katie, as well as a phone registered to the fake daughter. Police later seized further evidence, including letters Oldham had written to the invented child.
When Gilbert’s phone was searched by police, a voice changing app was discovered. The court heard Gilbert lied about being assaulted, kidnapped, beaten and raped in the past – and that she was dying – as the sick mind games continued.
Sentencing Gilbert to three years in prison after she admitted stalking and fraud, Judge Bernadette Baxter told her: “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.”
Gilbert, of Dukinfield, will now serve her sentence while her former friend continues counselling to recover from what the court heard was a campaign of abuse resembling “the plot of a Netflix drama.”
“I discovered the last 15 years of my life were a fabrication and I was living a lie,” heartbroken Michelle said in a statement as Gilbert watched from the dock. “Claire was my best friend. She told me she had been abused, raped and beaten.
“All of this was a lie and I believed her. She took 15 years away from me. For 15 years I was catfished, lied to and psychologically tortured. It wasn’t just a lie, it was the abuse of my future, my finances and my life.”
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