A woman swindled her parents £250,000 ($360,000 US) by pretending she was studying at Oxford University, according to a court hearing.
The woman spent the money on holidays, drugs, and a secret wedding her parents weren’t even invited to.
Nicola Boardman, 34, told her mother, Marilyn, and father, Frank, that she needed money to fund a large research project, with the chance of earning £3 million (roughly 4 million in US dollars) once it was finished.
Boardman’s parents believed her, so they gave up their jobs and sold their home, reports the Mirror—putting their faith entirely in their daughter’s hands.
Before the scam, Boardman earned a degree in social sciences at Camborne College, part of Plymouth University.
But she told her parents she wanted more and was interested of obtaining a PhD.
She said she had been offered a place at Oxford to study a PhD in Social Sciences.
According to the Daily Mail, her 60-year-old father drove her to what she told him were interviews at Oxford and Cambridge.
She was never offered a place.
Not only did she scam her parents for over four years, but she also secretly wedded a man from Redruth—who she knew her family “hated,” Daily Mail reports.
Broadman spent £10,000($14,383.50 US) on the wedding.
She also aborted a pregnancy, and told her parents she had a stillbirth.
She later invited them to a ceremony to scatter ashes.
Broadman pleaded guilty to fraud on April 20 and was sentenced to three years and four months at Truro Crown Court.
“This is another evidence-based example of the destruction caused to society by the use of drugs,” Mr. Justice James Dingemans said.
