A 60-year-old man has been sentenced to two years and four months in prison after keeping his dead mother's body in a chest freezer for nearly three years while fraudulently collecting her state benefits.
Christopher Phillips pleaded guilty to preventing a lawful and decent burial and two counts of fraud at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court on Monday. Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke handed down the sentence after hearing that Phillips received £78,190.92 in pension and benefit payments following his mother Sylvia Phillips's death in March 2023. He had ordered the freezer from a retailer two days after she died and failed to notify the Department for Work and Pensions or the local council of her passing.
The body of Sylvia Phillips, 89, was discovered during a police welfare check in February 2026 at their home in Porthcawl, Bridgend county, after her GP practice raised concerns about having had no contact with her since 2022. A pathologist could not determine a cause of death, but police said the circumstances were not thought to be suspicious.