A court in Truro, Cornwall has sentenced a fake student to jail for defrauding her parents out of £250,000 for a pretend degree course at an elite UK university. Nicola Boardman spent the money her parents gave for her education on drugs, weddings and holidays while maintaining a pretense of studying for exams. Devon and Cornwall Police The Week reports: Nicola Boardman, aged 34, told her parents, Frank and Marilyn, that she needed the money for research projects, rent and travel while studying towards a PhD in social sciences at Oxford University. “There were no interviews, no scholarships. Everything was fabricated,” said prosecutor Phillip Lee. The mother-of-one instead spent the money on drugs, lavish holidays abroad and a secret wedding her parents were not even invited to, a court in Truro heard. “She even lied to her parents that she had had a stillborn child and went as far as to invite them to a ‘sham’ ceremony where the ashes were scattered. In fact she had terminated the pregnancy,” The Guardian reports. Though addicted to heroin as a teenager, Boardman appeared to have kicked the habit after rehabilitation and went on to graduate from Plymouth University with a first class [...]
