Pensioner who posed as wife to cheat life co imprisoned

A pensioner who faked his own death and posed as his wife to fraudulently claim on his life insurance has been jailed for six years.

Anthony McErlean, 66, pretended he died in a road accident in Honduras in 2009, the Telegraph reports.

He committed "deliberate and calculated fraud" which involved using a faked death certificate to try and obtain the £520,000 payout from life company Ace European, Judge Adele Williams said.

As well as contacting his life insurance company pretending to be his wife, McErlean was fraudulently claiming the pension of his dead father-in-law since 2007.

Judge Williams said: "In my judgment, you were driven by a desire to gratify your own overweening greed. You sought to benefit at the expense of others."