Nurse jailed for pension fraud after faking cancer

Amanda Muir was charged with obtaining more than £185,000 from the Scottish Pensions Authority by fraud

A neonatal nurse has been jailed for two years for committing pension fraud while pretending she had leukaemia.

Amanda Muir told her family that she was dying, shaved her head and took weight loss medication to make it look like she was receiving cancer treatment.

The 46-year-old from Bathgate, West Lothian, faked medical letters to convince the NHS to prescribe her strong medication - including morphine - and falsely claimed a pension for her "ill health retirement".

Muir, who worked at Wishaw General Hospital in North Lanarkshire, was charged with obtaining more than £185,000 from the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) by fraud between 13 April 2021 and 31 August 2024.

Fiona Hamilton, prosecuting, told Livingston Sheriff Court that Muir had been referred for palliative care within the NHS in June 2024.

But two months later, a member of the care team raised "red flags" about her medical history.

It was revealed that the accused's consultant at a Spire private hospital had not treated her for cancer and letters purportedly signed by him were not genuine.

Factitious disorder

Detectives went to arrest Muir who was on holiday in Portpatrick, Dumfries and Galloway, and found her in bed with a cannula in her arm and her head shaved.

Police later found templates derived from the consultant's original letter telling her she did not have cancer at Muir's Bathgate home.

Defence counsel Jonathan Crow revealed that the accused had since been diagnosed with a "factitious disorder".

This is a mental illness where a person, without a malingering motive, acts as if they have an illness by deliberately producing, feigning, or exaggerating symptoms to assume the role of a patient.

Mr Crow said: "On her behalf I'm instructed to issue a public apology for all those who have been affected by her behaviour and her criminality.

"She describes a snowball effect where one thing led to another until she couldn't turn back from what she was doing."

He asked the court to accept that the fraud was a by-product of Muir's feigned illness rather than a pre-planned fraud.

The lawyer said she had never been in trouble before and still had £100,000 of the money which she was willing and able to return.

Passing sentence, Sheriff Susan Craig highlighted that Muir had received prescriptions for controlled drugs from the NHS, although those had not been charged as crimes.

She said: "It's important to state that this is a fraud on the Pensions Agency by producing 16 fraudulent letters.

"It was a substantial fraud and it resulted in you receiving a significant sum of money.

"The other aggravating factor is that the fraud went on for a very long time and that you kept up the deceit despite knowing you were not ill."

The sheriff said Muir had deliberately altered her appearance to make it seem as if she was undergoing chemotherapy.

"It appears to me your culpability in this matter was high and the harm you caused was significant," she told Muir.

"While the pensions agency is not an individual, it's a public body and it's publicly funded."

The sheriff said she took into account that Muir had been ostracised by her family and had lost the support of the wider community.

She also accepted that the accused was apologetic and embarrassed over what she had done.

The sheriff continued consideration of confiscation proceedings until December.