An evil mum and dad forced their healthy daughter to use a wheelchair so they could claim extra benefit cash.
Cruel parents Louise Law, 50, and Martin Law, 54, both from near Goole, Yorkshire, made their young daughter live a life filled with medical interventions just so they could “scam” the system and get disability payments and a mobility car.
But when she was 12 the girl was put into foster care and made a “miraculous recovery” and “stopped taking medication and started behaving like a normal, healthy child.”
Louise Reevell, prosecuting at Hull Crown Court, said that the cruelty happened between 2012 and 2017 when the couple’s daughter was aged between seven and 12, reports HullLive.
Louise Law and Martin Law both fabricated illnesses and exaggerated symptoms over their daughter’s health.
Mrs Reevell said: “Some of this was to obtain enhanced welfare payments.”
The girl was put into foster care at the age of 12.
“At this stage, overnight, she appeared to make a miraculous recovery and did not require a wheelchair,” said Mrs Reevell. “She stopped taking medication and started behaving like a normal, healthy child.”
The victim was interviewed in September 2022, when she was aged 18, and she said that the behaviour from her parents started when she was aged five or six. She said in a statement: “My parents would tell me that I couldn’t walk properly and I had a limp.
“I was subjected to bullying because I was in a wheelchair. I missed out on doing PE. I missed out on doing the normal things that other boys and girls were doing at break time. PE was something I enjoyed doing. I was taken into care at 12 years old and I found this scary at the time.”
She added: “The wheelchair became a barrier to make relationships and friendships. I have not had the opportunity to do the ordinary childhood things that people with ordinary parents did.
“I have no idea why my mother would do this other than they wanted money.”
Louise Law, 50, of Harvest Way, Rawcliffe Bridge, near Goole, admitted an offence of child cruelty. She changed her plea on the day of a scheduled trial.
Her ex-husband, Martin Law, 54, formerly of Marshfield Road, Goole, but currently living in a care home, was ruled unfit to enter a plea but a jury found that he did commit the act of child cruelty.
A judge has now jailed her mum Louise Law, for six years and nine months and her father Martin Law was made the subject of a guardianship order, initially for six months.
Dale Brook, mitigating for Louise Law, said: “This is not gratuitous degradation of a victim or sadistic behaviour.”
Oliver Shipley, representing Martin Law, said that the defendant was currently in a care home. He had not been brought to court.
Judge Kate Rayfield: “You repeatedly raised the issue of her being given a wheelchair. You were repeatedly advised against it. This was a scam.”
