AN “evil” pensioner who fleeced a lonely widower out of almost £80,000 has been jailed again for conning a Bolton man.

In March, Phyllis Wood, aged 68, was sentenced to 40 months in prison by Carlisle Crown Court after admitting duping the Workington man she met on an online dating website.

And this month, at Wigan Magistrates’ Court, she received a further eight months in jail after pleading guilty to fraudulently gaining £1,000 from a man in Bolton.

The court heard that Wood, of Smithills Croft Road, Bolton, told the man he could accompany her on a cruise if he paid her £500.

And she also persuaded him to give her £500 so that she could buy computer equipment and then sell it at a profit.

The offences were committed between August 2016 and 2017 and the jail sentence will be served concurrently to the sentence she is already serving in a Durham prison for the Cumbrian offences.

Carlisle Crown Court previously heard how Wood committed crimes against the Workington pensioner, who is in his 70s, to fund her addiction to gambling, also stealing a precious family heirloom jewellery from him after they met through an online dating website in October, 2017.

Wood quickly began to manipulate the man while he believed he was in a loving relationship with her.

Prosecutor Brendan Burke said: “What in fact was happening was he was being targeted as a source of funding for her gambling-addicted and lavish lifestyle.”

Wood falsely claimed her accounts were frozen during expensive United States divorce litigation.

“In response, the man gave her large sums of cash for imaginary legal bills, clothing, pretend holidays and even non-existent cancer care as she “invented a fictitious course of treatment at a private hospital”. Much of the money was squandered in casinos.

“Payments then accelerated for the fictitious cancer treatment when she told him she was about to lose her place at the hospital. Effectively he was being asked to pay up or face the prospect of her dying,” said Mr Burke.

After suspicions were raised the man also noted sentimental jewellery was missing from his home. Even after being charged Wood sent him a threatening note warning him to “drop the charges”.

Wood eventually admitted three fraud charges, stealing two watches and witness intimidation.

The man described himself as “devastated”. “I was completely taken in by this woman and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her,” he said in a victim statement. “What she has done is evil.”

Jailing her, Judge Nicholas Barker said: “You have sought to bleed him dry.Your deception knows no bounds.”