Elizabeth Edmunds faked cancer, facing fraud charges

IT didn’t take John Heagney long to fall in love with Elizabeth “Elle” Edmunds. They planned to marry within months of meeting but along with their wedding, they also planned her funeral.

Ms Edmunds told him she had cancer and was dying. Except that was a lie — she didn’t have cancer and is now facing police allegations she faked being terminally ill to attract donations, the Newcastle Herald reports.

A devastated Mr Heagney said the deception had “wrecked my life”.

‘‘All she wanted to do was get married before she died,’’ Mr Heagney said yesterday outside Belmont Court, in Belmont, near Newcastle, where Ms Edmunds failed to appear on fraud charges. ‘‘We planned our wedding and her funeral at the same time.’’

But Mr Heagney himself has faced accusations that he did know about the faked illness and even was the mastermind behind it.

In court earlier this year Ms Edmunds alleged he put her up to it.

“He was in on it just as much as me. He was the one who instigated it. It was his documentation, doctors. It was his plan. I went through with it because I was in fear,” the Mail Online said.

The judge in that case said it wasn’t for him to determine whether Mr Heagney did know of the fabrication or played a role in it, but did say Ms Edmunds reliability as a witness was in doubt because she was prepared to lie about having cancer.

However, Mr Heagney was found guilty of assaulting Ms Edmunds, an incident he claimed occurred after he found out she was faking the cancer.

He was also found guilty of assaulting his daughter and mother during a family fight.

This week he continued to maintain he was unaware her cancer was fake until he was informed by police and had no reason to think it wasn’t real.

‘‘She was in bed for virtually seven months. I looked after her to the best of my ability.’’

He now believes she was taking chemotherapy pills that made her ‘‘constantly sick (she was) vomiting, losing weight, really white, black around the eyes and her hair started falling out’’.

Eventually, she shaved her head.

Early in their relationship she told him she had “somatoform disorder’’ – a mental illness that caused bodily symptoms, including pain. ‘‘I had to push her round in a wheelchair for four months,’’ he told the Newcastle Herald.

Ms Edmunds is now facing charges of obtaining a financial benefit by deception.

According to court documents, police allege she raised $1815 online by ‘‘falsely claiming to have cancer’’ last year.

In a separate allegation she dishonestly obtained $500 from a ‘‘wish’’ foundation.

Mr Heagney said his life had changed forever as well.

‘‘It’s just wrecked my life. I go to a psychologist fortnightly and a GP weekly.’’

Ms Edmunds told Women’s Day last November her actions were possibly connected to trauma from losing a newborn baby seven years earlier.

“I really thought I was dying. I don’t know how my mind has done this to me.’’

She told the magazine she was sorry for any hurt she’d caused and hoped to pay back the money people had donated.

Mr Heagney’s friend Jade Stephens told the Herald ‘‘the whole family is distraught’’.

She had photographs of Ms Edmunds with a shaved head, alleging they were taken at a previous time when Ms Edmunds claimed she had leukaemia.

Ms Edmunds case was adjourned until July 22.

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