Woman kept mum’s dead body in house for 5 months to claim her pension payments

A woman has admitted keeping her mother’s body in her cellar since the pensioner died five months ago to claim benefits.

The unnamed daughter has been detained for fraud; accused of pretending her mother was still alive to pocket her pension payments.

She claimed that she hid the corpse in the village of Mytkyv, in the Ukraine, because she could not afford a funeral for her mother.

Later she confessed to police that after her mother died on January 2, she hid the body while pretending to friends and neighbours she was still alive.

She admitted pocketing pension money worth around £235, which she had authorisation to draw on her mother’s behalf while the woman was alive.

The daughter now faces two years of “correctional labour” and will be forced to repay the pension money to the state.