CHORLEY, August 4 — Pamela Gwinnett, known as the ‘Black Widow’ for her fraudulent activities, has been incarcerated following a sixteen-month period of evading authorities in Tenerife, Spain. This development concludes a significant case highlighting the vulnerabilities of elderly individuals to financial exploitation. The record shows Ms. Gwinnett’s schemes transpired between December 2019 and November 2022, a period coinciding with the global COVID-19 pandemic.
During this time, she posed as a carer for Joan Green, an 89-year-old widowed retired accountant residing in a bungalow within Chorley, Lancashire. The context of widespread isolation during the pandemic undoubtedly exacerbated the victim’s susceptibility, a pattern observed in similar cases of exploitation.
According to the information available, Ms. Gwinnett systematically isolated Mrs. Green from her family. She then fraudulently spent nearly £300,000 of Mrs. Green’s funds. This expenditure included £22,000 allocated for a car for Ms. Gwinnett’s personal use, alongside numerous expensive meals and Botox treatments.
In April 2025, as prosecutors proceeded with fraud charges against her and she awaited trial, Ms. Gwinnett departed for Tenerife. She reportedly claimed the necessity of scattering her brother’s ashes as her reason for travel.
For the subsequent sixteen months, Ms. Gwinnett remained in hiding within a villa located in the south of the island, where she was reportedly engaged in luxury activities such as receiving nail services and utilizing a high-end swimming pool. Mrs. Green’s family, meanwhile, expressed increasing concern regarding her welfare. Her eventual capture and imprisonment bring the legal process to a conclusion.
Chorley: A Historical Context
The town of Chorley, where the initial exploitation occurred, serves as the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. Historically, the town’s prosperity was largely derived from the cotton industry. In 2020, the local population was recorded at 36,682.
Geographically, it is positioned 8 miles north of Wigan and 20 miles north west of Manchester, underscoring its location within England’s industrial heartland. Chorley’s toponymy, derived from the Anglo-Saxon words ‘ċeorl’ and ‘lēah,’ signifies “the peasants’ clearing,” indicating its historical roots in agricultural settlement.
While no known occupation within the town itself existed until the Middle Ages, archaeological findings confirm human presence in the surrounding area since at least the Bronze Age. Evidence includes the Round Loaf tumulus, believed to date from 3500 BC, and Bronze Age pottery burial urns and cremation pits discovered in the 1960s and 1970s. The town was not explicitly listed in the 1086 Domesday Book but is presumed to have been among the twelve berewicks within the Leyland Hundred.
Its formal appearance in historical records dates to the mid-thirteenth century, when it became part of the Croston Lordship acquired by William de Ferrers, the Earl of Derby, around 1250. The Earl subsequently established Chorley as a small borough, structured as a two-row settlement that would later evolve into Market Street.
This early borough was short-lived, likely impacted by the Great Raid of 1322 by the Scots, which reportedly reached Chorley as one of its southernmost points in Northern England, leading to the construction of a Peel tower.
