Benefits Cheat Who Faked His Death Jailed

A benefits cheat who used taxpayers money to fund his Russian wife's breast implant operation before faking his own death has been jailed for 32 months.

Stephen Kellaway, 54, scammed £43,622 in housing and council tax benefits on a string of London properties - despite having nearly £280,000 stashed in various undeclared bank accounts.

Croydon Crown Court heard the former psychologist claimed he was a single parent on income support and created false tenants to claim the benefit from councils in Hammersmith and Fulham, and Richmond in west London.

But investigators began looking into his affairs in 2008, suspicious of the large amounts being claimed.

Later that year, the former psychologist, his wife Nelli and his step-daughter Natalia travelled to Moscow, where the women underwent plastic surgery and cosmetic dentistry.

In 2009, Nelli flew back to the UK to be met by police and council fraud investigators.

The court heard Mrs Kellaway arrived clutching a funeral urn and carrying life insurance documents worth £1.7m, which it is believed she intended to cash in.

Mark Hunsworth, prosecuting, said: "She claimed her husband had died two days earlier and the urn contained his ashes."

In fact, Stephen Kellaway - possibly inspired by the story of 'Canoe Man' John Darwin - had bribed a mortuary working in Moscow to plant his passport on the body of a dead tramp and issue a fake death certificate in his name.

Darwin claimed £680,000 in insurance payouts after faking a canoeing accident in 2002 and fleeing to Panama. He was later sentenced to six years in prison.

Meanwhile, Kellaway fled to Thailand - but not before using a legal loophole to obtain an Irish passport in the name of a dead child.

He used it to fly to the UK several times to see his parents in Brighton. In 2010, Nelli Kellaway was given a two-year suspended prison sentence for her part in the fraud and ordered to repay £55,000.

The court heard it was unknown if the couple's two children, aged 10 and 13, were told their father had died.

Last year, following a tip-off, Kellaway was tracked down by a UK national newspaper.

The 54-year-old's passport had been stolen and he was sleeping rough inside Bangkok's Suvarnabhuni Airport.

After four months in a Bangkok detention centre, he was extradited to the UK last Christmas where he admitted four charges of benefit and identity fraud.

Judge Shani Barnes sentenced Kellaway to a total of 32 months in prison.

"This was a cynical and selfish plan, and a crime of abject dishonesty," she told him.

"There are thousands of needy and desperate people who rely on the benefits system for survival. People such as yourselves, who cynically steal from them and people who pay tax, demolish its credibility."

Speaking after the case, councillor Greg Smith, of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, said: "You can run but you cannot hide. No matter what you do, if you decide to commit benefit fraud you will eventually get busted."