A psychologist who faked his own death after swindling £43,000 in benefits while paying for his wife’s breast enlargement was jailed for 32 months today.
Stephen Kellaway, 54, claimed housing benefit despite having property worth £1 million and a £100,000 salary. His wife Nelli claimed he had died on a trip to her native Russia where she had enlargement surgery.
She returned to Britain with a fake death certificate and an urn supposedly containing his ashes. After faking his death in 2008, Kellaway was caught sleeping rough at an airport in Bangkok with a fake Irish passport.
Prosecutor Mark Himsworth told Croydon crown court: “When she was arrested she said: ‘I’ll tell you everything.’ Found on her person were three life insurance documents valid at the time of his purported death which would have paid out £1.7 million.”
Kellaway, a father of two, admitted three charges of benefit fraud and one of identity fraud. He and his 43-year-old wife, his third, owned five properties in Richmond and Hammersmith and Fulham. She was given a 24-week suspended sentence after she said her “abusive” husband had coerced her.
